LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

CIlUS 


Guidance  from 

ROBERT     BROWNING 

in   Matters   of  Faith 


Gtiidance  from 

ROBERT  BROWNING 

in  Matters  of  Faith 


BY 

JOHN  A.   HUTTON,  M.  A. 


Cincinnati 
JENNINGS    &    GRAHAM 

Edinhirgh  and  London 
OLIPHANT,  ANDERSON  &  FERRIER 


-' 


fa 


ZO 
MY  WIFE 


Preface  to  the   Second  Edition 

The  writer  takes  opportunity  here  to  acknowledge 
the  fairness,  and,  in  most  cases,  the  eminent 
favour  with  which  this  small  book  has  been 
received.  The  purpose  of  the  book,  which  is, 
simply  to  derive  from  the  poet  the  help  he  offers 
for  the  serious  matter  of  living,  has  been,  in 
almost  every  case,  understood  and  accepted. 

Whether  it  be  an  added  glory,  or  a  limitation  of 
his  art,  there  is  always  present  in  Browning's 
writing  a  moral  substance,  the  passionate  pro- 
clamation of  some  particular  way  as  the  only  way 
for  beings  such  as  we  are  and  placed  as  we  are. 
And  because  that  strain  of  "guidance"  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  Browning,  there  is  room  yet  for 
many  books  which  will  consider  his  teaching  as 
such,  and,  having  found  reason,  will  ask  people 
and  especially  those  in  whom  the  elementary 
instinct  of  faith  has  become  depressed  by  experi- 
ence, to  make  a  faithful  trial  of  it. 

J.  A.  H. 

J  ESMOND,  Nh.WCASTLE-UPON-TyNE. 


Prefatory    Note 


The  four  lectures  which  appear  here  as  four 
chapters,  were  given  by  the  writer  to  a  con- 
siderable class  which  met  on  Sunday  evenings 
during  a  winter.  Each  lecture  served  as  an 
introduction  to  a  detailed  study  of  Browning's 
work  from  the  point  of  view  of  that  particular 
lecture.  This  may  explain  something  in  the 
literary  manner  of  the  book — a  certain  intimacy 
and,  in  Chapter  IV.,  an  undue  (as  it  may  be 
thought)  personal  note. 

Those  who  are  themselves  indebted  to 
Browning  for  a  solid  or  sufficient  footing  in 
the  deeper  things  of  life  will  not  consider  any 
book  superfluous  which,  however  poorly  exe- 
cuted it  may  be,  has  as  its  one  sincere  idea 
and  reason,  not  to  estimate  the  poet  or  to 
admire  him,  but  simply  to  urge  his  message 
as  offering  in  these  days  of  ours  a  basis 
and  motive  for  faith  and  hope  and  love. 

J.  A.  H. 


1903. 


The  quotations  from  Browning's  Poems  are  made  by  per- 
mission of  Messrs   Smith,  Elder  Iff  Co.  on  behalf  of  the 
owner  of  the  copyright. 


Contents 


PAGE 

The  Case  for  Belief     .....  9 

The  Soul's  Leap  to  God     ....  45 

The  Mystery  of  Evil  .....  83 

The  Incarnation 117 


The  Case  for  Belief 


The  Case  for  Belief 

Let  me  say  a  word  or  two,  at  the  outset, 
on  the  general  title — "  Guidance  from  Robert 
Browning  in  Matters  of  Faith."  In  matters 
of  faith,  the  utmost  that  any  one  can  do  for 
us,  is  to  give  us  guidance.  No  man  can 
give  his  faith  to  another,  any  more  than  he 
can  give  another  his  imagination  or  his  private 
history.  Faith — the  faith  of  which  alone  we 
wish  to  think,  is  in  every  case  a  personal 
thing  and  rests  upon  reasons  which  reach 
down  to  the  hidden  and  unfathomable  things 
of  a  man's  own  life.  The  region  where 
belief  sits  upon  the  throne  or  where  the 
throne  is  empty,  lies  far  from  the  frontier 
and  circumference  of  our  life ;  it  is  the  last 
recess  and  solitude  of  our  spirit.  Into  that 
region  none  can  intrude.  It  is  a  man's  own 
home.  There  he  lives  with  himself  and  can 
II 


The  Case  for  Belief 

have  no  companion — unless  it  be  God.  In 
all  the  deep  things  we  are  strangers  to  each 
other.  I  cannot,  therefore,  thrust  my  faith 
upon  you.  I  cannot  compel  you  to  believe 
for  reasons  which  satisfy  me.  Strictly 
speaking,  I  cannot  give  you  my  very  reasons 
for  believing  :  for  after  all  had  been  said 
that  I  might  say,  I  could  not  give  you  my 
own  point  of  view.  I  cannot  tell  you  of  all 
the  subtle  movements  in  my  interior  life,  the 
play  of  circumstances,  the  formation  of  per- 
sonal events,  the  kind  of  assault  they  make 
upon  me,  the  lights  and  the  shadows  which 
pass  over  my  soul,  and  which  mean  some- 
thing quite  clear  to  me.  I  cannot  tell  you 
of  the  very  things — the  voices  and  the 
silences — which  make  me  sure  of  God. 
Even  if  I  could  make  these  quite  plain  to 
myself  and  if  I  were  to  speak  of  them  to 
you,  they  would  lose  in  the  telling  the  very 
qualities — the  hiddenness  and  the  personal- 
ness — which  make  them  irresistible  for  me. 
And  then,  when  all  was  said,  I  might  not 

12 


The  Case  for  Belief 

have  touched  you ;  I  might  not  have  said 
anything  which  had  any  real  meaning  for 
you.  For,  it  is  the  very  essence  of  belief  that 
it  must  be  your  own.  It  must  be  born  within 
you,  and,  like  a  true  child,  must  spring  from 
the  very  stuff  your  life  is  made  of. 

That  is  all  true,  and  it  seems  to  mean  that 
we  can  do  nothing  for  each  other  in  this 
great  matter.  But  it  is  not  so.  I  only  wish 
to  make  plain,  at  the  outset,  that  one  cannot 
compel  faith  in  another,  that,  even  when  the 
argument  for  belief  has  pushed  its  way  into 
the  very  citadel  of  the  soul,  there  a  man  is 
still  impregnable.  He  is  still  secure  within 
an  inviolable  shrine.  He  must  choose  to 
yield,  he  must  consent  to  believe.  The  door 
of  that  innermost  stronghold  opens  only  at 
his  own  touch  from  within.  Nevertheless 
we  can  do  a  great  deal  for  each  other  in 
these  most  personal  matters.  We  can  speak 
humbly  to  others  about  such  difficulties  as 
we  ourselves  may  have  passed  through.  If 
we  are  indebted  to  some  great  or  good  man 
b  13 


The  Case  for  Belief 

for  giving  us  a  new  point  of  view,  a  way  of 
looking  at  things  which  confirmed  our  faith 
when  it  had  been  disturbed,  we  can  do  our 
best  to  make  others  see  as  we  see  now.  In 
any  case,  we  can  try  to  feel  together  the 
seriousness  and  mystery  of  this  life  of  ours, 
so  that  if  we  do  not  attain  to  a  clear  and 
final  faith  in  God,  we  may  at  least  lose  our 
flippancy  and  boldness  as  we  come  within 
sight  of  the  stern  facts  of  life  and  the  fore- 
bodings which  they  stir.  Anything,  of  course, 
that  one  may  say  by  way  of  guidance  is  of 
no  value  except  to  those  who  are  in  earnest. 
We  cannot  compel  the  proverbial  horse  to 
drink  • — We  always  knew  that ;  but  if  the 
horse  determines  to  be  rebellious,  we  cannot 
even  lead  him  to  the  well. 

I  have  been  saying  that  belief  can  never 
be  thrust  into  a  life  by  force  of  argument  or 
discussion,  that  in  the  last  resort  belief  rests 
upon  certain  personal  secrets  which  lead  a 
man  to  embrace  such  proofs  as  are  offered. 
In  the    same   way,   the   denial   of  God — for 

14 


The  Case  for  Belief 

denial  and  not  doubt  is  the  true  contrary  to 
belief — (the  denial  of  God)  arises  in  nearly 
every  case — if  you  inquired  carefully,  or  if 
you  could  see  below  the  surface — from  a 
certain  stiffness  and  rebelliousness,  and  this 
attitude  has  been  brought  about  by  the 
events  of  the  man's  own  personal  history. 

We  make  a  serious  mistake  if  we  suppose 
that  unbelief  comes  about  in  a  majority  of 
cases,  as  the  result  of  intellectual  difficulties. 
The  most  and  worst  that  such  difficulties 
can  produce  in  an  ingenuous  mind  is  doubt  or 
prayer.  But  denial — the  harsh  and  dogged 
opposition  to  the  ideal  or  spiritual  view  of 
human  existence — arises  within  a  man,  I 
must  believe,  because  of  certain  experiences, 
e.g.  in  the  region  of  his  emotions.  Perhaps, 
in  his  youth,  he  drtamed  a  dream ;  but  the 
world  mocked  him,  and  so  he  determined  to 
dream  no  more.  Or  he  aimed  at  something, 
and  he  missed  it ;  or  he  trusted  a  friend, 
and  was  betrayed.  Or  he  loved  a  woman, 
and   she  broke  her    word   or  he  broke  his. 

J5 


The  Case  for  Belief 

Or  death  snatched  his  young  wife  from  his 
newly-lighted  home  and  the  light  that  was  in 
him  became  darkness.  It  is  life,  it  is  ex- 
perience which  inclines  the  heart  to  faith  or 
to  denial,  and  those  are  some  of  the  bitter 
things  which — unless  we  take  pains — poison 
the  roots  of  a  life,  so  that  the  man  needs  to 
be  born  again,  the  hard  crust  of  atheism 
needs  to  be  broken  up  by  some  still  more 
acute  distress,  or  by  some  amazingly  good 
thing  before  he  can  believe  in  God. 

Now,  I  should  say,  it  is  my  personal  testi- 
mony, that  Robert  Browning  is  never  of  such 
value  as  just  in  those  days  when  something 
bitter  has  befallen  us,  and  we  are  on  the 
point  of  angrily  blowing  out  our  light.  He  is  a 
real  friend  to  any  one  who  has  been  defeated, 
or  who  has  been  left  behind  in  the  race.  He 
can  in  a  wonderful  way  lay  his  hand  upon 
your  shoulder  when  you  have  failed.  If  at 
such  a  time  you  listen  to  his  words,  the  milk 
of  human  kindness  within  you  will  not  turn 
sour.  When  you  would  like  "  to  curse 
16 


The  Case  for  Belief 

God,"  Browning  can  break  in  upon  your 
narrow  passion,  with  a  strong,  hopeful  word  ; 
and  behold  the  narrow  walls  fall  flat  as  did 
the  walls  of  Jericho,  and  you  see  the  things 
that  compensate.  He  would  like  to  come 
near  you  in  the  dark  and  dizzy  moments  of 
your  life,  to  sit  beside  you,  and  wait  till  you 
are  well.  He  will  discover  to  you  "the 
light  which  is  in  the  midst  of  your  cloud," 
or,  at  the  worst,  he  will  promise  you  a  day 
when  the  "  wind  will  come  and  cleanse  your 
sky."  That  is  one  level — I  mean  the 
emotional  life — on  which  Robert  Browning 
meets  a  man  and  helps  him  on  or  helps  him 
back  to  faith  in  God.  Browning  knew  that 
the  incidents  of  our  life — the  silent  defeats, 
disillusionments,  betrayals — give  a  man  his 
point  of  view,  his  way  of  looking  at  things ; 
that  these  sow  the  seeds  of  what  may  be- 
come harsh  and  hopeless  unbelief. 

Therefore  he  tries  to  get  alongside  a  man 
in  all  the  various  discomfitures  of  life.  He 
would  fain  sing  him  a  song  to  heal  his  wound. 

17 


The  Case  for  Belief 

He  appeals  to  us  not  to  give  way  to  rash 
decisions  because  of  any  private  shock,  to 
remember  that  the  soul  is  greater  than  its 
mere  circumstances,  that  even  in  the  last 
push  and  stress  of  evil  fortune  a  man  may 
call  upon  his  soul  and  be  supreme.  It  is 
perhaps  here  more  than  anywhere  else  that 
Browning  best  serves  the  cause  of  faith,  by 
going  up  and  down  the  ranks,  putting  new 
heart  into  men,  calling  upon  the  brave  still 
to  be  brave  and  braver  yet,  rebuking  the 
cowardly  with  a  lash  of  contempt,  whispering 
something  to  the  faint,  and  pleading  with 
those  who  have  sunk  to  the  rear.  This 
service,  however,  great  as  it  is,  and  directly 
on  the  side  of  belief — I  mean  his  bracing 
treatment  of  the  human  soul  in  all  its  nine- 
teenth-century moods  -is  not  what  readers 
of  Browning  have  come  to  look  upon  as  his 
peculiar  guidance  in  matters  of  faith.  When 
one  uses  the  phrase,  "  Guidance  from  Robert 
Browning  in  matters  of  faith,"  he  means  and 
is  understood  to  mean,  the  help  which  in 
18 


The  Case  for  Belief 

his  works  generally  Browning  gives  to  those 
who  feel  the  difficulty  of  believing.  He 
means  the  light  which  Browning  sheds  upon 
the  peculiar  questions  of  our  time,  his  inter- 
pretation of  those  facts  in  the  human  situation 
which  seem  inconsistent  with  the  Sovereignty 
of  a  just  and  Loving  God.  And,  above 
every  other  distinction,  that  is  Browning's 
value  for  us.  He  is  the  great  Apologist  of 
these  last  days,  the  man  of  God  to  our 
peculiar  age.  He  has  ranged  through  the 
vast  world  of  nature,  and  the  vaster  world  of 
the  human  soul,  in  his  vigorous  contention 
with  unbelief.  He  is  splendidly  equipped 
for  the  long  and  intricate  battle.  "  When 
British  literature,"  said  Carlyle  of  Scott  and 
Cobbett,  ulay  all  puking  and  sprawling  in 
Wertherism,  Byronism,  and  other  sentimen- 
talisms,  nature  was  kind  enough  to  send  us 
two  healthy  men."  Browning  is  a  healthy 
man,  a  man  of  boundless  spirits  and  untiring 
energy.  He  takes  a  ditch  at  a  leap,  and  the 
momentum  of  his  rush  carries  him  to  the  top 

*9 


The  Case  for  Belief 

of  any  hill  of  difficulty.  There  he  takes 
breath,  and  gazes  on  the  grand  horizon,  and 
in  a  moment  is  pressing  forward  on  some 
further  toil.  That  is  one  side  of  Browning's 
qualification  to  be  the  prophet  of  our  time. 
But  a  fund  of  good  spirits  is  not  faith. 
Faith — and  certainly,  the  only  kind  of  faith 
which  will  satisfy  us  now — faith  must  be 
aware  of  all  the  difficulties.  Faith  must  be 
able  to  maintain  itself  in  the  face  of  all  the 
grimness  and  sordidness  of  the  human  situa- 
tion. Now  Browning's  faith  is  of  that  kind. 
His  is  not  the  faith  of  a  man  who  shuts  his 
eyes  and  deceives  himself:  belief,  in  his  case, 
is  the  strenuous  search  for  and  discovery  of 
God  in  all  and  through  all  and  over  all. 
Browning  saw  the  things  that  make  faith 
hard  to  hold.  He  eyed  those  things  all  his 
days.  His  very  finest  words  have  no  mean- 
ing unless  you  remember  the  dark  things  to 
which  they  were  given  as  an  answer  or  a 
challenge.  But  he  never  sat  down  and 
lamented  the  human  lot.  He  took  off  his 
20 


The  Case  for  Belief 

coat  and  wrestled  with  the  enemy  till  the 
breaking  of  the  day.  "  Does  anyone  suppose 
that  faith  is  an  easy  thing  for  me  ? "  he  seems 
to  ask.  "Nay;  it  is  a  long  victory,  i.e.  a 
long  battle." 

"  With  me,  faith  means  perpetual  unbelief 
Kept  quiet,  like  the  snake  'neath  Michael's  foot 
Who  stands  calm  just  because  he  feels  it  <writhe." 

(Bhugram.) 

"  All's  doubt  in  me  !  (where  then  is  my  faith  ?) 
It  is  the  idea,  the  feeling  and  the  love 
God  means  mankind  should  strive  for  and  show 
forth."  (Blougram.) 

"  This  is  the  glory — that  in  all  conceived, 
Or  felt  or  known,  I  recognised  a  mind, 
Not  mine  but  like  mine — for  the  double  joy — 
Making  all  things  for  me,  and  me  for  Him." 
(Prince  Hohenstiel  Schwangan.) 

And  now  I  wish  to  work  my  way  through 
a  statement  according  to  Robert  Browning,  a 
mature  and  deliberate  statement  as  I  hold,  of 
the  case  for  belief.  I  wish  you  to  face  with 
me  certain  difficulties  in  the  way  of  belief, 

21 


The  Case  for  Belief 

and  to  consider  what  Browning  has  to  say  to 
them.  Browning  was  engaged  throughout 
his  whole  life  on  this  subject,  contending  for 
belief  in  the  face  of  every  perplexing  thing. 
The  difficulty,  therefore,  which  presents  itself 
to  one  in  my  position  is  to  make  a  selection 
from  the  wealth  of  materials. 

It  would  be  an  easy  and  pleasant  exercise 
for  me  to  bring  together  passages  from 
Browning — first  and  last,  which  literally 
stagger  with  the  joy  and  fulness  of  faith, 
passages  which,  like  the  soul  of  Caponsacchi, 
are  "drunk  with  truth."  I  wish,  however, 
to  avoid  that.  For  one  thing,  the  pith  of 
any  quotation  from  a  serious  writer  lies  in 
the  context.  This  is  notably  true  of  Robert 
Browning.  In  his  case,  it  is  the  process  that 
is  characteristic  and  illumines.  He  says  his 
best  things  by  the  way.  But  further,  it 
brings  little  help  to  one  who  is  really  in 
trouble  about  faith  to  hear  a  firm  voice  from 
afar.  Such  an  one  is  not  yet  ready  for  vic- 
torious words  or  for  conclusions.  He  knows 
22 


The  Case  for  Belief 

that,  for  himself,  he  has  a  battle  to  fight. 
Caught  in  a  morass  it  may  only  dishearten 
him  to  hear  another  celebrate  the  firm 
footing  on  the  ridge.  What  most  people 
need  to-day  who  are  wrestling  in  any  funda- 
mental way  with  life,  is  some  idea  which  will 
make  the  hardest  battle  seem  worth  while,  an 
access  of  energy  which  will  urge  them  to  be 
faithful  to  their  own  personal  problem,  a 
revival  and  reinforcement  of  that  instinct  to 
live,  which  for  reasons  has  been  bruised. 
In  short,  they  do  not  want  a  conclusion  but  a 
task. 

I  have  decided  to  devote  myself  in  what 
follows  of  this  chapter  to  one  work  which 
represents  very  fairly  Browning's  chief 
positions  and  his  general  attitude  towards 
unbelief.  Students  of  the  poet  know 
that  I  might,  for  this  purpose,  have  chosen 
"Paracelsus"  or  "Christmas  Eve  and  Easter 
Day,"  or  "A  Death  in  the  Desert,"  or 
"  Ferishtah's  Fancies,"  and  made  any  one 
of  these   a  basis  of  a  defence  of  faith.     I 


The  Case  for  Belief 

have  chosen  the  argument  in  "  Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology."  There  may  be  those 
who  know  Browning  and  who  think  that 
"  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology  "  was  not  meant 
to  be  taken  seriously,  that  the  Bishop  who 
is  speaking  is  a  contemptible  character,  and 
that  the  whole  poem  is  a  cynical  defence  of 
compromise  and  hypocrisy.  I  must  simply 
say  that  I  take  an  entirely  different  view.  I 
hold  that  in  "Blougram,"  Browning  is  in 
terrible  earnest,  despite  the  humour  which 
never  forsook  him.  In  " Blougram,"  I  see 
Browning  refusing  to  take  a  man  more 
seriously  than  the  man  takes  himself.  He 
chaffs  Mr  Gigadibs,  not  for  his  unbelief,  but 
for  his  shallowness,  for  his  ignorance  of 
what  his  denial  involved.  But  behind  those 
twinkling  eyes  of  Blougram,  I  see  a  convinced 
and  genuine  soul.  In  "  Blougram's  Apology," 
Browning  utters  sentiments  which  he  repeats, 
almost  without  change,  in  what  is  admitted 
to  be  his  most  sober  work,  e.g.  in  the 
"Pope,"  and  in  " Ferishtah."  Are  there 
24 


The  Case  for  Belief 

not,  too,  sudden  solemnities  in  Blougram's 
talk,  such  as  are  possible  only  to  a  man  who 
is  in  the  habit,  when  he  is  alone,  of  facing 
the  ultimate  things — God,  the  soul,  the 
future  ?  Blougram  knew  very  well  what  he 
had  to  look  for  from  God  if  he  were  nothing 
but  a  hypocrite.  You  remember  the  grim 
story  with  which  he  begins  his  defence. 

"...  how  some  actor  on  a  stage  played  Death, 
With  pasteboard  crown,  sham  orb,  and  tinsell'd 

dart, 
And  called  himself  the  monarch  of  the  world  ; 
Then,  going  in  the  tire-room  afterward, 
Because  the  play  was  done,  to  shift  himself, 
Got  touched  upon  the  sleeve  familiarly 
The  moment  he  had  shut  the  closet  door, 
By  Death  Himself.     Thus  God  might  touch  a 

Pope 
At  unawares,  ask  what  his  baubles  mean, 
And  whose  part  he  presumed  to  play  just  now. 
Best  be  yourself,  imperial,  plain  and  true." 

{Blougram,  2Ap,  I.) 

I  cannot  think  that  the  man  who  was  haunted 
at  the  moment  by  such  a  terrible  thought, 

*5 


The  Case  for  Belief 

sat  down  there  and  then  deliberately  to  play 
the  knave.  Therefore,  and  for  many  reasons 
in  addition,  I  believe  "  Bishop  Blougram's 
Apology  "  to  be — though  the  pure  gold,  as 
was  Browning's  manner,  is  here  mixed  with 
much  alloy — a  serious  defence  of  faith,  a 
serious  statement  of  the  case  for  belief; 
that  in  "  Blougram "  we  have  in  germ 
the  deepest  thoughts  that  Browning  ever 
uttered. 

Mr  Gigadibs,  a  literary  man  and  a  sceptic, 
is  seated  at  table  with  Bishop  Blougram  in 
the  Bishop's  house.  The  moment  supper  is 
over,  the  Bishop  plunges  into  a  discussion 
on  matters  of  faith.  He  may  have  been  irri- 
tated by  some  magazine  article  of  Gigadibs. 
Certainly  he  is  very  angry,  but  restrains 
himself,  knowing  that  he  has  his  man  well  in 
hand,  and  can  crush  him  whenever  he  cares 
to.  He  begins :  u  So,  Mr  Gigadibs,  you 
would  reconstruct  the  world  ?  You  are  not 
satisfied  with  things  as  they  are  ?  You  see 
flaws  and  inconveniences  which  might  have 
26 


The  Case  for  Belief 

been  prevented.  Life  puts  cruel  burdens 
upon  a  man  —  and  so  forth.  In  short, 
things  might  have  been  otherwise  arranged. 
No  doubt  that  is  quite  true  ;  at  least  let  us 
say  so  for  a  moment.  One  could  conceive  a 
world  much  different  from  this  one,  and  at 
first  sight,  more  kind.  We  might  have  had 
less  snow  about  the  poles.  The  Arctic 
regions  are  perhaps  a  little  overdone.  And 
then  the  torrid  zone — how  hot  and  intoler- 
able it  is!  Then  there  is  the  loathsome 
world  of  creeping  things,  all  so  objectionable 
and,  as  it  seems,  so  useless  !  Yes  ;  truly,  life 
might  have  been  laid  out  upon  a  different 
plan.  And  yet,  are  you  sure  it  would  have 
been  a  better  world  ?  You  cannot  say.  The 
Arctic  regions,  after  all,  give  us  our  cool 
fresh  winds,  and  how  welcome  they  are  in 
June !  It  may  be  the  same  with  all  those 
other  circumstances  which  we  think  unfortu- 
nate or  evil.  We  cannot  now  conceive  of 
life  without  them.  If  you  change  one  real 
fact  in  this  world,  you  must  make  the  whole 
27 


The  Case  for  Belief 

world,  and  make  man,  anew.  We  have 
grown  up  amongst  things  as  they  are,  and 
now  they  are  the  best  surroundings  we 
could  have.  They  make  the  very  demands 
upon  us  which  we  need  if  we  are  to  realise 
our  true  life.  We  need  hard  facts  if  we  are 
to  have  brave  souls.  No,  friend,  I  see  now 
that  you  would  need  to  know  everything, 
and  know  how  one  thing  affected  another 
right  on  to  the  limits  of  creation,  before  you 
could  say  that  things  as  they  are,  might, 
with  advantage,  have  been  otherwise.  But 
apart  from  that,  the  question  is  not  how  we 
should  think  and  feel  if  we  were  in  another 
kind  of  world ;  if  we  lived  in  Mars  or  in  the 
Moon.     The  fact  is,  we  are  here. 

"  The     common    problem,    yours — mine,    every 
one's 
Is — not  to  fancy  what  were  fair  in  life, 
Provided  it  could  be — but  finding  first 
What  may  be,  then  find  how  to  make  it  fair 
Up  to  our  means  ;  a  very  different  thing." 

u  An  illustration.     We  mortals  must  cross 
28 


The  Case  for  Belief 

the  ocean  of  this   life.      We  cannot  choose 
but  cross.     We  are   already    out  upon    the 
deep  when  we  are  born.     To  each  of  us  is 
allotted  a  certain  space  in  the  great  ship — no 
more.     How  then  are  we  to  prepare  for  the 
voyage?      An    India-screen,    a    piano,   some 
sets  of  books,    a    marble    bath,    some    pic- 
tures   and    other   comforts?     But  you   have 
only  six  feet  square  !     What   will  you  do  ? 
Will  you  stand  sulking  on  the  pier  and  refuse 
to  go  on  board  with  some  well-selected  and 
well-packed  necessaries,  because  you  cannot 
have  your  piano  and  bath  ?     It  looks  distin- 
guished,  no  doubt,  to   protest  against  what 
others    are    trying   to    make    the     most    of. 
Nevertheless  you  must  get  on  board,  and  if 
you   will    not    be    sensible    and    take    some 
things  you  are  sure  to  need,  you  will  have  to 
endure  the  long  voyage  in  torment.     You  see 
what  I'm  driving  at?     You  and  I  were  not 
consulted  at  the  making  of  the  world.     We 
awoke    and  found   ourselves  here;    but    we 
know  some  plain  things  which  we  must  do. 
c  29 


The  Case  for  Belief 

We  begin  our  existence  here  under  the 
shadow  and  influence  of  instincts  which  were 
given  to  us,  as  it  were,  in  our  sleep." 

"  And  now "  (we  may  suppose  Blougram 
continuing  as  he  warmed  to  his  case)  "  we 
are  agreed  that  we  must  take  the  world  as 
we  find  it.  We  are  not  in  Mars  or  in  the 
Moon,  we  are  here.  The  question  is — Shall 
we  believe  in  God  or  shall  we  not  believe  ? 
Tgu  do  not  believe.  Well,  let  me  also  try 
not  to  believe.  Let  us  banish  belief  entirely 
— not  half-heartedly,  mind  you,  or  in  certain 
special  cases,  but  absolutely." 

Here,  let  me  say,  we  are  coming  to  a  stroke 
which  Browning  practises  very  frequently.  It 
is  a  playful  stroke,  as  he  performed  it,  but 
deadly  always  at  the  last.  He  accepts  his 
opponent's  position,  and  then  shows  him  that 
it  is  untenable.  Browning,  as  Father  Ogniben 
in  "  A  Soul's  Tragedy  "  puts  it,  tries  to  help 
a  man  on  to  his  own  conclusions.  "I  have 
no  objection,"  said  that  guileless  and  nimble 
father,  "  to  agreeing  with  any  man  that  two 

3° 


The  Case  for  Belief 

and  two  make  jive,  if  he  will  go  a  little 
further  and  agree  with  me  that  four  and  four 
make  ten."  And  so,  Browning  never  pursues 
an  opponent  so  ruthlessly  as  when  he  begins 
by  agreeing  with  him,  and  then  showing  him 
what  both  have  committed  themselves  to. 
Another  stroke  of  his,  and  one  very  like  this, 
is  to  answer  a  man's  question  by  asking  him 
another ;  but  we  have  reached  an  example  of 
both. 

"  Let  us  together,"  continued  Blougram, 
"banish  belief  and  refuse  to  see  even  one 
solitary  hint  of  God  in  the  world,  or  in  history, 
or  in  the  spirit  of  man.  Let  us  agree  that 
the  world  is  so  much  stone  and  lime,  and 
that  things  happen  without  reason  or  mean- 
ing. But  can  you  promise  me  that  you  and  I 
shall  be  able  to  keep  ourselves  in  this  fixed 
state  of  unbelief?  I,  on  my  part,  am  quite 
ready  to  confess  that  there  are  circumstances 
in  life,  such  as  the  existence  of  evil,  the 
apparent  drowsiness  of  justice  and  absence 
of  retribution,  pain,  sickness,  and  the  moral 

31 


The  Case  for  Belief 

squalor,  which  disturb  my  faith  in  God,  and 
pull  me  up  suddenly.  But,  if  we  decide  not 
to  believe,  can  you  promise  me  that  our 
unbelief  will  never  be  disturbed,  that  we  shall 
never  be  pulled  up  suddenly  in  our  atheism 
by  something  which  suggests — God?  Ah! 
you  cannot  promise  me  that  I  shall  be  safe  in 
my  unbelief.  Suppose  I  stand,  some  evening, 
by  the  sea-shore  alone.  I  watch  the  rise  and 
fall  of  the  vast  waters,  until  I  seem  to  see 
the  heaving  bosom  of  a  tired  world  asleep. 
The  sun  goes  down  behind  the  sea,  and  in 
the  dusky  sky  the  quiet  stars  begin  to  be 
born.  Ah,  Gigadibs,  can  you  promise  me 
that  I  shall  not  feel  the  pathos  of  such  a 
scene,  that  I  shall  not  drift  away  into  thinking 
of  God  and  of  myself?  No,  you  cannot 
promise  me  that.  For  I  am  so  made  that  I 
cannot  but  feel  strange  meanings  amid  such 
solemn  scenes,  and  hear  again  the  siren  voice 
of  faith, — that  this  world  which  we  hold  to 
be  crass  matter,  and  without  divinity,  is  none 
other  than  the  house  of  God,  and  the  gate 

3* 


The  Case  for  Belief 

of  heaven.  Can  you  promise  me  that  I  shall 
never  hear  one  speaking  to  me,  when  I  am 
alone,  recalling  to  me  my  past  foolishness 
and  the  things  I  would  fain  forget?  Con- 
fess that  you  cannot,  confess  that  the  soul 
lies  open  for  ever  to  all  manner  of  disquieting 
and  convulsive  thoughts,  that 


'  Just     when    we're     safest,     there's    a    sunset 

touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides — 
And  that's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears 
As  old  and  new  at  once  as  nature's  self, 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul, 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring 
Round  the  ancient  Idol,  on  his  base  again, 
The  grand  Perhaps  !     We  look  on  helplessly. 
There  the  Old   misgivings,  crooked  questions 

are — 
This    good    God — what    He    could  do   if   He 

would, 
Would  if  He  could — then  must  have  done  long 

since. 
If  so,  when,  where,  and  how  ?     Some  way  must 

be,- 

33 


The  Case  for  Belief 

Once  feel  about  and  soon  or  late  you  hit 
Some  sense  in  which  it  might  be  after  all, 
Why    not,     "  The    Way,    The    Truth,    The 
'Life?" 

Thus,  you  see,  unbelief  is  not  more  secure 
than  belief.  Admit  that  in  the  human  situa- 
tion, there  are  circumstances  which  seem  to 
urge  you  to  unbelief,  there  are  also  circum- 
stances which  assuredly  urge  you  to  belief. 
When  I  set  out  with  my  belief,  I  agree  with 
you  for  the  moment  that  my  belief  may 
get  many  a  shake  as  I  pass  through  life  and 
look  about  me.  But  when  you  set  out  with 
your  unbelief,  you  must  agree  with  me  that 
your  unbelief  also  gets  many  a  shake ;  so  that, 
in  short,  you  are  no  more  secure  in  your 
unbelief  than  I  am  in  my  belief. 

"  All  that  we  have  gained  by  our  unbelief, 
Is  a  life  of  doubt  diversified  by  faith, 
For  one  of  faith  diversified  by  doubt. 
We  called  the  chess-board   white  ;    we   call  it 
black." 

Having  made   good  this  point,  Blougram, 
34 


The  Case  for  Belief 

we  may  suppose,  was  silent  awaiting  an 
answer  from  the  other.  Students  of  phil- 
osophy will  recall — when  I  mention  it — a 
remarkable  corroboration  of  what  Browning, 
by  the  mouth  of  Blougram,  has  just  said, 
that  a  man's  theory  of  life  may  be  over- 
turned and  shown  to  be  inadequate  by  some 
new  experience  in  the  man's  own  life  ;  how 
the  human  heart  may  refuse  to  be  treated 
as  a  negligible  thing,  but  may  start  up  and 
claim  its  share.  They  will  remember  how 
Auguste  Comte  had  completed  his  "  Posi- 
tive Philosophy" — a  system  which  assumed 
that  man  is  guided  and  ought  to  be  guided 
by  the  chill  voice  of  reason  and  exact  know- 
ledge ;  and  how  he  fell  in  love  with  Madame 
Clotilde  de  Vaux,  and  thereupon  revised  his 
system,  leaving  room  for  the  human  heart. 
Truly,  as  Blougram  says — 

"  Just  when  we  are  safest  there's  a  sunset  touch 

And  that's  enough.  .  .  ." 
Gigadibs  has  his  reply,  and  it  is  the  reply 
35 


The  Case  for  Belief 

of  many.  "  You  agree  with  me,"  he  says, 
"  that  the  facts  of  human  life  may  lead  to 
unbelief  as  naturally  as  to  belief.  Unbelief, 
therefore,  is  at  least  quite  as  proper  an 
attitude  for  a  man  to  take  up  as  belief?" 
"No!"  Blougram  breaks  in  triumphantly, 
"I  have  you  there.  You  forget  that  we 
must  embark  on  the  sea  of  life.  We  must 
work  hard  and  bear  burdens.  Supposing  the 
reasons  for  belief  and  against  it  were  equal 
(they  are  not),  a  man  must  choose  the  one 
which  makes  the  best  of  him.  Now,  I  hold 
that  belief  does  this ;  unbelief,  not  at  all." 
Belief  means  for  him  who  has  it,  that  life, 
and  his  particular  life,  has  a  purpose  which 
embraces  and  needs  all  the  peculiar  events, 
trials,  lights,  shadows  which  come  to  him. 
If  a  man  truly  believes,  he  will  march  breast- 
forward  as  to  a  land  of  promise.  With 
belief  in  his  heart,  the  details  of  his  life 
lose  all  their  pettiness  and  acquire  dignity; 
his  sorrows  and  pains  are  no  longer  torture, 
but  discipline,  and  they  point  onwards  to  a 

36 


The  Case  for  Belief 

day  and  to  a  state  of  being  when  there  shall 
be  no  more  need  of  them.  Whereas  un- 
belief— how  does  it  bear  upon  life  ?  Why 
should  a  man  who  denies  God  go  on  toiling 
and  moiling  here  ?  If  a  man  is  living  to  no 
purpose,  why  should  he  go  on  living  at  all? 
Why  has  he  not  the  courage  to  make  plain 
to  himself  what  thorough  unbelief  means? 
It  means  that  he  is  living,  as  Emerson  put 
it, — simply  to  wear  out  his  boots.  No ! 
unbelief  should  always  be  accompanied  by 
inaction,  and  should  welcome  and  indeed 
hasten  towards  death.  If  a  man  thoroughly 
denies  that  there  is  any  purpose,  or  use,  or 
final  meaning  in  this  human  scene,  if  he 
sincerely  holds  that  there  is  no  reason  for 
his  doing  anything,  then,  says  Blougram 
with  a  slash,  "  to  be  consistent  he  should 
keep  in  bed." 

A  man's  belief  is  the  thing  the  man  is 
living  by.  Beneath  every  life,  there  is  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  a  personal  belief. 
u  And  now,  if  we  are  agreed  that  life  needs 

37 


The  Case  for  Belief 

belief,  we  must  hold  to  that  as  a  fixed 
dogma  in  all  weathers.  We  must  apply  it 
to  the  minutest  as  well  as  to  the  vastest 
issues.  We  must  not  only  believe  when 
we  are  inclined  to ;  we  must  determine  to 
believe.  We  must  rebuke  ourselves  as  often 
as  we  find  ourselves  cynical  or  unbelieving. 
We  must  say,  this  is  my  infirmity,  my  weak- 
ness, the  result  of  moral  indolence,  anything ; 
but  it  is  not  the  truth.  It  may  be  that 
there  is  a  mist  in  my  eyes,  or  that  there 
are  clouds  overhead ;  but  it  can  never  be 
that  there  is  no  eternal  blue  and  eternal 
sun.  Once  have  I  felt  the  awful  need  of 
God,  and  in  that  moment  I  seemed  to  find 
Him.     I  must  believe  forever  that  He  is. 

Further,  if  we  must  believe  at  all,  we 
must  believe  the  best.  If  there  is  a  purpose 
running  through  all  things,  it  can  only  be 
the  holiest  purpose.  If  God  is,  He  must 
be  good  beyond  all  our  measures  of  good- 
ness. If  man  is  indeed  going  home,  then 
eye   hath  not    seen  nor  ear  heard,   neither 

38 


The  Case  for  Belief 

hath  it  entered  the  mind  of  man,  the  glorious 
things  that  wait  to  welcome  him." 

If  I  am  right  in  what  I  read  between  the 
lines,  Blougram  by  this  time  had  made  a 
real  impression  on  behalf  of  belief  in  the 
mind  of  the  sceptic.  Gigadibs  seems  to 
have  said,  "Yes,  I  see  now  that  belief  is 
necessary  if  a  man  is  ever  to  do  his  part 
in  life.  But  why  is  faith  not  easier  ?  Why 
cannot  we  see  the  signs  of  God  more  un- 
mistakably ?  If  one  could  only  see  some 
amazing  and  undeniable  proof,  how  much 
more  easy  faith  would  be  ? "  "  Not  so !  " 
says  Blougram,  "  in  that  case  it  would  not 
be  faith ;  it  would  be  sight.  Besides,  you 
know  not  what  you  ask.  As  surely  as  a 
man's  body  would  shrivel  up  in  agony  if  his 
eyes  were  without  lids  and  his  brain  were 
without  a  pan  and  the  vertical  sun  were 
beating  upon  him,  so  surely  would  the 
mind  faint  and  lose  its  own  identity  if 
suddenly  a  man  were  brought  face  to  face 
with   God.     'That    were    the    seeing  God, 

39 


The  Case  for  Belief 

no  flesh  shall  dare.'  You  think  you  would 
like  to  have  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
everybody  believed— when  a  traveller  coming 
home  from  the  East  would  tell  you  how 
he  had  seen  the  ark  lying  on  the  shoulder 
of  Mt.  Ararat,  though  he  did  not  go  to 
the  top  of  the  mountain  as  it  was  getting 
dark  and  there  were  robbers  about.  You 
think  faith  would  have  been  easier  then. 
Once  more,  not  so;  at  least  not  so,  the 
faith  I  mean.  For  faith  with  me  is  not  the 
easy  acceptance  of  hearsays.  Faith  is  the 
vivid  control  by  God  of  my  whole  life,  body, 
soul  and  spirit,  and  such  a  state  is  hard  to 
attain  and  to  keep  alike  in  every  age. 

"  '  Friend,  such  view 
Is  but  man's  wonderful  and  wide  mistake. 
Man   lumps    his    kind  i'  the   wars :    God   singles 

thence 
Unit  by  unit.     Thou  and  God  exist — 
So  think — for  certain  :  think  the  mass — mankind — 
Disparts,  disperses,  leaves  thyself  alone  ! 
Ask  thy  lone  soul  what  laws  are  plain  to  thee, 
Thee  and  no  other — stand  or  fall  by  them  ! 

40 


The  Case  for  Belief 

That  is  the  part  for  thee :  regard  all  else 
For  what  it  may  be — Time's  illusion.   .  .  .'" 

(Ferishtah,  A  Camel  Driver.) 


<: '  What  think  ye   of  Christ,   friend,  when  all's 
done  and  said  ? 
Like  you  this  Christianity  or  not  ? 
It  may  be  false,  but  would  you  have  it  true  ? 
Has  it  your  vote  to  be  so  if  it  can  ? 

Once  own  the  use  of  faith,  I'll  find  your  faith : 
We're  back  on  Christian  ground.' " 

(B/ougram.) 

Such,  in  very  bare  outline,  and  stripped 
of  innumerable  gems  of  truth  that  thrust 
and  shine  and  burn,  is  Bishop  Blougram's 
Apology,  his  statement  of  "  the  Case  for 
Belief."  We  read  that  the  sceptic,  to  whom 
he  addressed  all  this  and  more,  was,  if  not 
convinced,  at  least  made  sober ;  that  he 
wrote  no  more  articles  against  faith ;  that 
he  began  to  be  less  sure  of  his  own  ground, 
like  a  man  who  is  standing  on  thin  ice. 
He    went    abroad,  where,  Browning    hopes, 

4i 


The  Case  for  Belief 

amongst  the  quiet  and  solemn  things  of 
nature  he  may  study  the  last  chapter  of  S. 
John,  and  learn  how  even  one  who,  like 
Peter,  had  blasphemed,  may  come  to  himself 
and  live  and  die  for  the  Lord  whom  once  he 
denied. 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  have  helped  any 
of  you  in  anything  I  have  written.  I  wanted 
to  leave  certain  things  on  your  minds.  I 
wanted,  for  one  thing,  to  show  that  the 
thorough-going  denial  of  God  has  its  own 
serious  difficulties,  and  that  these  are  more 
obstinate  than  the  difficulties  of  believing. 
I  wanted  also  to  help  anyone  who  had  taken 
up  a  definite  position  of  denial  (to  help  him) 
to  carry  his  unbelief  to  some  of  its  con- 
clusions ;  in  short,  to  point  out  that  if  two 
and  two  are  to  count  five,  four  and  four 
must  be  allowed  to  count  ten  ;  which  is  more 
serious. 

But  I  have  been  wishing  in  all  that  I  have 
said  to  remove  an  impression  which  seems  to 
42 


The  Case  for  Belief 

be  common.  There  are  many  who  think 
that  belief  is  an  easy  thing  to  attain  to,  and 
to  hold.  I  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  un- 
belief is  the  easy  thing,  the  thing  that 
requires  no  thought  at  all,  or  only  surface 
thought.  S.  Paul  has  a  deep  saying  to 
this  efFect.  "  No  man,"  he  affirms,  "  can  say 
that  Jesus  is  the  Lord  except  by  the  Holy 
Ghost."  S.  Paul's  Master  said,  "The  pure 
in  heart  shall  see  God."  These  two  sayings 
express  one  and  the  same  thought.  It  is 
this ;  the  vision  of  God  falls  only  upon  those 
who  believe  in  the  soul,  only  upon  those  who 
treat  life  seriously,  and  who  obey  at  every 
step  the  highest  that  they  know. 

If  an  artist  fifty  years  ago  had  wished  to 
paint  a  figure  which  expressed  the  ideas 
underlying  the  word  "belief,"  he  would  have 
drawn  the  figure  of  a  man,  armed  most  likely 
to  the  teeth,  his  enemies  struggling  about 
his  feet,  and  in  the  distance,  but  not  too  far 
ahead,  the  sure  gates  of  the  Heavenly  City. 

But  how  does  an  artist  of  our  day,  who 

43 


The  Case  for  Belief 

has  heard  the  voices  of  our  time,  symbolise 
the  great  ideas  which  we  name  when  we  say 
"I  believe  in  God." 

Take  Watts'  fine  picture,  called  "Hope." 
It  is  the  figure  of  a  wo/mm,  sitting  on  the 
circle  of  the  earth.  She  is  blindfolded.  She 
holds  a  stringed  instrument  to  her  ear.  She 
has  struck  one  chord  and  it  has  broken  at 
her  touch ;  she  has  struck  another,  and  it 
too  has  given  way.  And  now  there  is  but 
one  string  remaining.  From  it  must  the 
music  come — else  there  is  no  music  in  the 
world.  But  she  does  not  shrink  before 
the  awful  possibility.  She  prepares  to 
strike  once  more,  never  doubting  that  the 
last  string  will  be  true,  and  from  it  will 
come  forth  the  clear,  full  note.  That  is 
faith:  "  to  be  very  sure  of  God." 


44 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 


D 


n 

The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

I  read  in  the  newspaper  the  other  day  of  a 
wonderful  invention  to  be  used  in  war.  It 
was  a  bomb,  with  such  materials  inside  the 
shell,  and  so  contrived  as  to  explode  at  the 
touch  of  a  ray  of  light !  The  bomb  might 
be  placed  anywhere  and  do  no  harm ;  but  let 
a  ray  of  light  fall  upon  it  in  particular,  and 
on  the  instant,  at  the  summons  of  the  light, 
the  thing  would  awake  and  burst.  Well, 
that  is  a  very  exact  summary  of  Robert 
Browning's  teaching  on  the  conversion  of  the 
soul,  or  the  soul's  discovery  of  God.  His 
books  teem  with  lines  which  tell  of  the 
tremendous  forces  that  lie  coiled  up  within 
the  soul,  ready  to  burst  out  and  tear  open  a 
way  of  escape  for  that  divine  thing  which, 
according  to  Browning,  is  the  last  analysis  of 

47 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

a  man.  He  loves  to  watch  these  explosions ; 
to  show  you  a  light  coming  towards  a  man 
until  it  shines  upon  his  face.  Suddenly  there 
is  blaze  and  crash  and  dust  and  smoke  ;  but 
when  these  have  passed,  you  see  the  man 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  God,  "  Clothed  and  in 
his  right  mind,"  while  Browning  chants  a 
psalm.  Browning  makes  these  bombs  of 
every  degree  of  intensity.  He  is  always 
indeed  practising  with  this  principle  of  his, 
that  light  can  burst  every  bondage  of  the 
soul.  He  loads  one  man's  soul  with  some 
small  secret,  some  light  sin,  but  still  a  secret 
and  a  sin ;  something  that  gnaws  within  him 
and  brings  clouds  into  his  sky.  Then  he 
will  turn  a  gentle  light  upon  that  man's  face, 
which  shakes  the  man  but  sets  him  free. 
Again,  he  will  put  more  of  the  explosive 
material  into  a  soul,  deeper  and  more 
obstinate  sinning,  and  within  a  harder  shell. 
Once  more,  he  will  turn  the  ray  of  light,  the 
mild  eye  of  God,  upon  the  man,  and  then 
you  have  a  crash  and  a  cry ;  but  this  man 

48 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

too  comes  out  of  the  fire  free  and  clean.  At 
last  he  will  construct  a  hideous  soul  as  a  final 
test  for  his  theory  and  faith.  He  will  load 
this  soul  to  the  neck  with  the  stuff  of  hell ; 
he  will  bind  it  round  and  round  with  bands 
of  steel.  As  you  look  at  the  impenetrable 
case  in  which  this  foulness  is  sealed,  with  no 
chink  or  weakness  in  its  brazenness,  you 
wonder  whether  the  quiet  light  will  ever 
reach  and  stir  that  blackness  into  flame. 
The  Great  Chemist — the  poet  himself — 
seems  to  doubt.  But  once  more  he  turns  a 
light  upon  the  black  ball,  until  it  glows. 
For  one  moment  there  is  silence.  And  for 
another!  The  light  seems  to  call  in  vain. 
But  it  still  beats  upon  the  encased  iniquity, 
growing  whiter  with  impatience,  until  the  iron 
wrappings  grow  hot  and  the  mass  bursts  like 
all  the  others,  and  Guido,  the  infernal,  rushes 
out  of  life  with  a  cry  which  the  good  God 
may  hear. 

I  regard  Browning's  teaching  on  Conver- 
sion as  his  supreme  message  to  our  time.     It 

49 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

is  that  teaching,  as  it  seems  to  me,  which  ranks 
him  with  the  prophets.  Valuable  as  is  the 
light  which  he  sheds  upon  those  problems  of 
life  and  experience  which  are  as  old  as  man, 
or  at  least,  as  old  as  the  days  of  reflection  ; 
splendid  as  is  the  courage  with  which  he 
girds  his  loins,  and  faces  the  darkness  and 
the  doubt ;  yet  more  solitary  and  dis- 
tinguished is  his  teaching  on  the  soul  of 
man,  his  impassioned  confidence  that  the 
soul  may,  in  one  grand  moment,  leap  sheer 
out  of  any  depth  of  shame  or  subtle  bondage, 
and  leap  to  the  breast  of  God. 

We  do  not  go  far  wrong  if  we  define  a 
prophet  as  a  man  who,  in  the  name  of  God, 
boldly  contradicts  the  spirit  of  his  time.  A  man 
who  knows  very  well  what  people  are  saying, 
and  how  they  have  reached  their  conclusions, 
but  who  himself  has  a  hold  of  the  great  fact 
of  God,  which,  for  him,  makes  all  things 
different — that  is,  often,  how  we  become 
aware  that  there  is  a  prophet  in  our  midst. 
Well ;  in  these  days  of  ours,  we  have  become 

5° 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

conscious  of  certain  words  which,  unless  we 
take  care  to  keep  them  in  subjection,  will 
shut  out  God  and  hope.  There  is  the  word 
"  heredity,"  for  we  always  had  the  thing 
itself.  We  have  learned  now  that  we  all 
begin  life  with  a  bias,  that  we  are  not  free, 
but  bound.  We  are  the  children  of  our 
parents ;  we  inherit  their  form  and  features, 
their  voice  and  manner.  Aye,  but  more 
than  that,  we  inherit  their  history  and,  in  a 
very  real  sense,  we  in  our  life  merely  continue 
theirs.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  likeness  is  confined  to  externals  merely. 
If  thought,  and  feeling  and  desire,  and  the 
will  itself  are  bound  up  inextricably  with  our 
physical  frame,  then — so  materialistic  science 
must  go  on  to  affirm — even  in  the  region  of 
our  most  personal  life,  we  must  be  content 
to  dwell  under  the  shadow  and  bondage  of 
the  past,  under  the  tyranny  and  threatening 
of  old  deeds  and  passions  and  weaknesses 
which  were  never  properly  our  own.  And 
further,   we  have    become    vividly    aware  in 

51 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

these  days  of  the  law  that  "  whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap,"  we  see  now 
very  clearly  that  this  is  a  law-abiding  world, 
and  that  consequences  are  inevitable.  That 
having  once  admitted  a  sin  into  our  life, 
thereafter  "  the  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire 
is  not  quenched."  That  therefore  there  is 
nothing  left  for  us  except  to  "  dree  our 
weird,"  to  fulfil  our  destiny,  which  in  fact  is 
our  doom.  And  so  on  and  on !  Now,  it  is 
the  distinction  of  Robert  Browning  that  he 
breaks  in  upon  this  gloomy  teaching  and 
cries  out  a  thousand  times,  that  it  is  false 
and  worse — a  blasphemy.  It  is  quite  true, 
but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth — for  it  omits 
God.  It  is  true  that  the  moral  life  is  con- 
tinuous and  inevitable,  and  that  as  a  man 
has  begun,  so  he  must  go  on.  But  it  is  also 
true — and  this  overcomes  the  other,  as  a  tide 
will  overcome  the  wind  and  compel  the  waters 
its  way,  (it  is  also  true),  that  there  is  a  living 
God  who  is  ever  pressing  in  upon  us  with 
His  hidden  resources  to  interrupt  and  turn 

52 


The  Souls  Leap  to  God 

the  fatal  drift.  It  was  Robert  Browning's 
great  opportunity  and  genius  to  declare  this 
Gospel,  which  is  just  the  Gospel,  to  our 
time ;  to  tell  out  by  word  and  parable,  that, 
in  spite  of  the  increment  of  generations 
bearing  down  upon  one's  soul,  in  spite 
of  inherited  weakness  and  liabilities,  in 
spite  of  the  burdens  which  the  soul  may 
have  taken  upon  itself,  and  the  entangle- 
ments in  the  midst  of  which  it  may 
now  be  writhing  —  it  was  his  to  declare 
that  it  is  possible  for  the  soul  to  meet 
the  light,  to  see,  as  it  were,  the  face  of 
God,  and  then  would  the  hoariest  mountains 
be  removed  and  cast  into  the  depths  of 
the  sea. 

"  Oh,  we're  sunk  enough  here  God  knows  ! 
But  not  quite  so  sunk  that  moments 
Sure  tho'  seldom  are  denied  us, 
When  the  spirit's  true  endowments 
Stand  out  plainly  from  its  false  ones, 
And  apprise  it,  if  pursuing 
Or  the  right  way,  or  the  wrong  way 
To  its  triumph  or  undoing. 

53 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

There  are  flashes  struck  from  midnights, 
There  are  fire-flames  noon-days  kindle, 
Whereby  piled-up  honours  perish, 
Whereby  swollen  ambitions  dwindle. 
While  just  this  or  that  poor  impulse, 
Which  for  once  had  play  unstifled, 
Seems  the  whole  work  of  a  life-time, 
That  away  the  rest  have  trifled." 

There,  in  those  lines  from  "  Cristina,"  you 
have  one  expression  among  a  thousand  of 
Browning's  exultant  belief  in  what  the 
Church  calls  Conversion.  In  those  lines,  at 
the  same  time,  you  have  the  manner  in 
which,  according  to  the  poet,  the  great 
change  invariably  happens.  Suddenly  a  light 
falls  upon  a  man,  some  message  from  the 
pure  world  of  spirit  strays  into  his  soul,  and 
in  that  moment  the  world  shakes  beneath 
him.  He  sees  himself,  his  sin,  his  shame, 
his  awful  peril  in  one  amazing  flash,  and  by 
the  compulsion  of  a  power  which  he  cannot 
resist,  he  breaks  away  from  it  all.  The  past 
falls  from  him  so  thoroughly  that  the  man 
can  look  at  it  now  as  if  it  were  some  horrid 

54 


The  SouPs  Leap  to  God 

snake  which  had  twined  itself  about  him,  and 
which  now  lies  dead  at  his  feet.  The  ray  of 
light  has  burst  the  fetters  of  brass,  and 
scattered  the  iron  in  pieces.  The  man 
stands  breathless  as  if  from  a  struggle,  but 
stands  for  the  moment  free  and  clean,  a 
soul  new-born  and  made  alive  unto  God. 
Browning  never  wearies  telling  us  of  the 
power  of  splendid  moments  to  lift  a  man 
sheer  out  of  his  sin  or  weakness  or  unbelief. 

"  I  crossed  a  moor  with  a  name  of  its  own, 
And  a  certain  use  in  the  world  no  doubt ; 
Yet  a  hand's-breadth  of  it  shines  alone 
'Mid  the  blank  miles  round  about  ; 

"  For  there  I  picked  up  on  the  heather, 
And  there  I  put  inside  my  breast 
A  moulted  feather,  an  eagle-feather! 
Well,  I  forget  the  rest." 

A  moulted,  eagle  feather!  Something,  i.e. 
falls  out  of  the  blue  sky  at  a  man's  feet,  as 
he  goes  on  through  life.  Well,  let  him  put 
it  inside  his  breast.  For  moments  like  these 
decide  our  destiny.     These,  the 

55 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

"  Shifting  fancies  and  celestial  lights 
With  all  the  grand  orchestral  silences 
To  keep  the  pauses  of  the  rhythmic  sounds," 

— these  are  the  only  moments  worth  treasur- 
ing. They  make  us  forget  all  that  is  best 
forgotten.  They  lift  us  far  above  the 
common  ways,  and  {give  us  glimpses  of  a 
vast,  fair  world  which  ever  abides,  though 
for  long  days  we  often  see  it  not.^ 

"In  man's  self  arise, 
August  anticipations,  symbols,  types, 
Of  a  dim  splendour,  ever  on  before, 
In  that  eternal  circle  run  by  life." 

Those  moments  of  illumination,  when  a  light 
from  another  place,  like  the  finger  of  God, 
touches  the  soul,  may  spring  from  every 
kind  of  circumstance.  They  are  possible  at 
all,  indeed,  because  there  is  an  ultimate 
sympathy  between  God  and  every  man.  But 
any  kind  of  incident,  if  it  only  happen  at  the 
right  moment,  may  become  the  medium  of  a 
whisper  from  God  which  stirs  and  unmakes 

56 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

and  remakes  the  soul.  "  The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth,"  said  Jesus,  "and  thou 
hearest  the  sound  thereof;  but  canst  not 
tell  whence  it  cometh,  or  whither  it  goeth, 
so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit." 
It  may  be  the  discovery  that  you  love  some- 
one, or  that  someone  loves  you — it  may  be 
this  that  lifts  you  out  of  yourself  and  intro- 
duces you  in  the  moment,  and  for  ever  to  the 
spiritual  life.  It  may  be  the  passing  of  a 
sweet,  sad  face.  It  may  be  a  white  flower. 
It  may  be  a  chord  of  music  or  an  old  song 
heard  by  you  after  long  sore  years.  It  may 
be  that  someone  has  forgiven  you  a  cruel 
wrong.  Or  it  may  come  to  you — the  quiet 
ray  of  light,  the  glance  of  God's  calm  eye — 
it  may  come  in  the  pause  of  sickness,  or  in 
the  keen  solitude  before  death.  Anything 
may  serve  to  let  in  the  holy,  purging  fire  of 
God  and  truth,  and  thus  make  all  things 
new. 

"  I  was  a  friend  in  darkness  chained  for  ever 
Within  some  ocean-cave;  and  ages  rolled 

57 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

Till  through  the  cleft  rock,  like  a  moonbeam, 

came 
A  white  swan  to  remain  with  me  :  and  ages 
Rolled,  yet  I  tired  not  of  my  first  free  joy 
In  gazing  on  the  peace  of  its  pure  wings." 

Even  a  dream  may  convey  a  true  message  to 
the  soul,  and  the  man  may,  when  he  awakes, 
thank  God  for  the  vision,  and  live  by  the 
light  of  it  for  ever. 

"  One  dream  came  to  a  pale  poet's  sleep, 
And  he  said,  '  I  am  singled  out  by  God  ; 
No  sin  must  touch  me.'  " 

But  whatever  the  occasion  through  which 
this  breath  of  God  finds  its  way  into  the 
soul,  the  thing  itself  has  always  one  quality. 
It  is  always  ua  moulted  feather,  an  eagle 
feather,"  always  something  from  an  unworldly 
place,  something  that  falls  out  of  the  sky, 
something  that  comes  out  of  a  pure  world, 
which  seems  to  bend  over  and  embrace  this 
world  of  ours.  In  fact,  it  is  always  the 
whisper  of  God  Himself.  "  For  God  is  in  all, 
and  through  all,  and  over  all/'     The  human 

58 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

love,  the  sweet,  sad  face,  the  chord  of  music, 
the  snatch  of  the  old  song,  were  only,  so  to 
speak,  the  messengers  who  knocked  at  the 
heart  of  the  man  ;  when  the  door  opened, 
it  was  always  God  Himself  who  entered. 
There  is  a  line  passage1  in  "Paracelsus," 
where  Browning  tries  to  account  for  this 
fact  which  he  saw  on  every  side,  that  the 
soul,  at  the  touch  of  a  certain  light,  can  shake 
itself  free  and  break  away  from  its  bondage 
as  an  imprisoned  eagle  might  escape  and 
sweep  the  heavens  in  sheer  defiance. 

"  Truth  is  within  ourselves  :  it  takes  no  rise 
From   outward    things,  whate'er  you  may   be- 
lieve ; 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fulness  ;  and  around, 
Wall  upon  wall  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 
This  perfect,  clear  perception — which  is  truth, 
A  baffling  and  perverting  carnal  mesh 
Binds  it,  and  makes  all  error :  and  to  Know 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendour  may  escape. 

1  Vol.  ii.,  p.  34. 

59 


^The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

Hence  may  not  truth  be  lodged  alike  in  all 
The  lowest  as  the  highest  ?     Some  slight  film 
The  interposing  bar  which  binds  a  soul 
And  makes  the  idiot ;  just  as  makes  the  sage 
Some  film  removed,  the  happy  outlet  whence 
Truth  issues  proudly  ? 
Oh,  not  alone  when  life  flows  still  do  truth 
And    power    emerge,    but    also   when    strange 

chance 
Ruffles  its  current;  in  unused  conjuncture 
When  sickness  breaks  the  body — hunger,  watch- 
ing, 
Excess  or  languor,  oftenest  death's  approach, 
Peril,  deep  joy,  or  woe. 
Therefore  set  free  the  soul  alike  in  all." 

The  substance  of  such  teaching  is  just  this : 
man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  is 
made  for  God.  Any  other  kind  of  life  does 
violence  to  a  man,  and  is  unnatural  to  him. 
If  a  man  wanders  from  his  way,  if  he  forgets 
what  he  is,  then  it  is  as  if  he  was  compressing 
the  divine  spirit  within  him.  That  is  why 
sin  brings  pain,  and  why  the  ways  of  trans- 
gressors are  hard.  It  is  because  the  spirit 
of  God  is  resisting  the  pressure,  the  true 
60 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

man  is  struggling  to  dethrone  the  false  man. 
When  through  some  chink  or  momentary 
pause,  the  spirit  within  sees  the  face  of  God, 
when  the  hand  of  God  reaches  and  grasps 
the  hand  of  the  man  within,  then  there  comes 
such  a  reinforcement  to  the  soul  that  it  can 
throw  off  the  incubus  of  years  and  the  misery 
of  countless  deeds,  and  can  stand  erect  above 
all  the  ruins.  "  When  he  came  to  himself, 
he  said  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father. 
And  he  arose  and  came  to  his  Father."  Man 
is  for  ever  the  prodigal  son,  with  his  history 
and  his  hope. 

And  now,  let  me  give  you  some  illustra- 
tions of  Browning's  teaching  on  Conversion, 
which  up  to  this  point  I  have  been  trying  to 
isolate  and  to  define.  The  locus  classicus  for 
this  side  of  his  message  is,  as  students  of 
Browning  are  aware,  the  drama  entitled 
"  Pippa  Passes  " — a  work  which  for  delicacy 
and  charm,  and,  at  the  same  time  for  strength 
and  insight,  Browning  surely  never  surpassed. 
There  you  have  the  story  of  how  a  little 
e  61 


The  SouPs  Leap  to  God 

orphan  girl,  Pippa,  spent  her  one  holiday. 
She  set  out  in  the  early  morning  of  the  New 
Year's  Day,  with  no  aim  except  to  walk  in 
the  sunshine  and  sing  out  the  joy  she  felt. 
But  all  the  while,  she  was  to  be  God's  own 
sunshine  that  day,  looking  in  upon  certain 
lives,  interrupting  them,  rebuking  them,  in- 
spiring them,  but  bringing  them  one  and  all 
face  to  face  with  God. 

First  she  passed  the  unholy  house  of 
Ottima  and  her  lover  Sebald.  Already 
Sebald's  conscience  had  been  aroused,  as  he 
saw  the  sun  rising  grandly  that  morning  over 
the  fresh  good  world.  But  his  temptation  was 
too  near  him.  The  good  spirit  which  for  a 
moment  had  been  stirred,  was  just  about  to 
fall  into  a  deeper  sleep,  and  Sebald  to  fling 
himself  into  the  abyss  of  sin,  when  Pippa 
passed,  singing,  singing  about  God. 

"  The  year's  at  the  spring,  and  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven  5  the  hillside's  dew-pearled  ; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing,  the  snail's  on  the  thorn ; 
God's  in  His  heaven  ;  all's  right  with  the  world." 

62 


"The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

And  Pippa  passed.  Aye  :  but  not  before 
a  shaft  of  light  had  pierced  as  with  an  arrow 
the  inmost  soul  of  Sebald.  "  God's  in  His 
heaven ! "  he  muttered,  like  one  awaken- 
ing from  a  horrid  dream.  "  God's  in  His 
heaven  !  Do  you  hear  that,  Ottima  ?  "  And 
in  the  moment  the  world  of  sin  appeared 
in  all  its  ghastliness.  Suddenly,  sin  lost 
all  its  glamour  for  him,  and  in  that  pure 
moment  of  recoil,  he  killed  himself.  But 
before  he  died  a  wonderful  peace  seemed 
to  be  coming  towards  him.  He  thanked. 
God  that  he  had  been  saved  so  as  by  fire. 

"  That  little  peasant's  voice 
Has  righted  all  again ;  though  I  be  lost, 
I  know  which  is  the  better,  never  fear, 
Of  vice  or  virtue,  purity  or  lust, 
Nature  or  trick  !     I  see  what  I  have  done, 
Entirely  now.     Oh,  I  am  proud  to  feel, 
Such    torments  —  let    the    world    take    credit 

thence — 
I,  having  done  my  deed,  pay  now  its  price, 
.  .  .   God's  in  His  heaven  !  " 

His  last  words  were  that  he  felt  all  the  sin 

63 


The  SouPs  Leap  to  God 

and  blackness  of  his  life  hurrying  down, 
like  waters,  into  some  ghastly  pit,  leaving 
him  clean  and  calm. 

I  will  not  stay  to  tell  you  now  of  the 
other  ministries  which  little  Pippa — God's 
ray  of  light — rendered  on  that  New  Year's 
Day.  How  she  passed  by  Jules,  the  artist's 
window,  when  his  soul  was  in  another  kind 
of  toil,  when  he  was  nearly  giving  way  to  the 
spirit  of  the  world ;  and  how  her  song  came 
to  his  rescue  and  was  for  him  the  voice  ot 
God  bidding  him  "  to  his  own  self  be  true." 
And  then,  how  she  passed  by  the  old  tower 
where  Luigi  the  patriot  had  almost  consented 
to  give  up  the  enterprise  which  was  to  set 
Italy  free.  But  Pippa's  song  made  him 
dash  to  the  earth  the  cup  that  would  have 
sent  his  soul  to  sleep,  and  he  hurried  down 
the  hill  to  his  high  task.  "Tis  God's 
voice  calls:  how  could  I  stay?  Farewell!" 
And  last,  and  late  at  night,  how  Pippa 
passed  beneath  the  bishop's  window  just  as 
the  bishop  was  being  lured  into  a  diabolical 

64 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

plot.  But  the  bishop  heard  the  innocent  song, 
and  in  a  moment  shrank  shuddering  from  the 
abyss  where  last  moment  he  stood  trifling  with 
his  soul.  "Gag  this  villain  who  tempts  me. 
Remove  him  !  O  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  me!  " 
Thus  in  one  day,  the  little  child,  Pippa, 
became  in  God's  hand,  a  ray  of  light  which 
burst  the  bondage  of  four  souls  at  least. 

Take  another  story,  in  which  you  find 
the  same  account  of  the  burdened  soul 
when  a  stream  of  light  pours  into  it.  Take 
the  story  in  the  poem  "  Ned  Bratts."  On 
a  hot  midsummer's  day,  their  lordships  were 
conducting  the  Special  Assizes  in  Bedford 
Courthouse.  Business  was  proceeding,  v/hen 
old  Ned  Bratts  and  his  wife,  hand-in-hand, 
tumbled  up  the  passage  until  they  reached 
the  platform.  Then  they  turned  round 
and  faced  the  assembled  people.  They 
pleaded  with  the  judges — in  God's  name — 
to  let  them  speak  out.  And  this  was  what 
they  said.  They  had  just  come  from  Bed- 
ford Jail,  where  they  had  met  John  Bunyan. 

65 


The  Soufs  JLeap  to  God 

They  had  been  such  sinners  all  their  lives 
that  their  souls  were  black  and  hot.  But 
John  Bunyan  had  spoken  to  them  of  God. 
He  had  taken  down  "the  blessed  book" 
and  had  read  out  of  it  about  God,  and 
Christ,  and  heaven  ;  about  Love  and  Pity 
and  Forgiveness  ;  about  another  world  than 
this,  and  another  way  of  looking  at  things 
from  what  is  common.  And  God's  eye  had 
settled  upon  them — man  and  wife.  And 
now  they  felt  that  they  must  empty  their 
souls  of  all  their  sins,  and  drag  out  to  the 
light  all  their  hidden  iniquities  so  that  God 
and  the  daylight  might  burn  them  up.  In 
that  open  court,  in  the  full  light  of  day, 
they  poured  out  their  souls,  those  two,  the 
one  helping  the  other  not  to  forget  even 
one  foul  spot.  Murders  they  confessed  and 
all  manner  of  evil,  and  felt,  they  said,  as 
they  confessed,  that  they  were  being  eased 
and  were  becoming  pure.  At  last  they 
were  done ;  and  now  they  besought  the 
judges  to  condemn  them  quick  to  death. 
66 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

And  Ned  Bratts  and  his  wife  passed  swiftly 
out  of  life  singing  and  making  melody  in 
their  hearts  unto  God. 

But  the  illustration  of  how  God  and  all 
holy  things  rush  in  upon  the  soul,  which 
I  love  best  in  Browning,  is  the  story  from 
the  "Ring  and  the  Book"  which  the  priest 
Caponsacchi  tells  of  himself.  In  that  story, 
you  may  learn  how  a  passionate  and  sinful 
man  became  suddenly  quiet  and  gentle  and 
vividly  aware  of  God — all  through  that 
angel  child,  Pompilia — our  poet's  most  deli- 
cate and  holy  work,  "  the  rose  he  has 
gathered  for  the  breast  of  God."  You 
will  read  there  how  a  careless  and  wild- 
hearted  man  met  the  pure  gaze  of  an 
innocent  child  who  had  been  cruelly 
wronged,  and  how  from  that  moment  God 
possessed  him  utterly.     He   tells  how — 

"  That  night  and  next  day  did  the  gaze  endure, 
Burnt  to  my  brain,  as  sunbeam  thro'  shut  eyes, 
And  not  once  changed  the  beautiful,  sad,  strange 


67 


The  Soufs  Leap  to  God 

He  tells  how  he  wrestled  with  the  new 
vision  of  God,  and  with  the  new  meaning 
which  life  had  taken  on, 

"  The  fact  is  (he  says)  I  am  troubled  in  my  mind, 
Beset  and  pressed  hard  by  some  novel  thoughts. 

I  will  live  alone,  one  does  so  in  a  crowd, 
And  look  into  my  heart  a  little." 

He  tells  how  he  used  to  struggle  with  him- 
self before  he  gave  himself  entirely  to  the 
new  leading ; 

"  One  evening  I  was  sitting  in  a  muse, 
Over  the  opened  '  Summa  ' ;  darkened  round 
By   the  mid-March   twilight,   thinking  how  my 

life 
Had  shaken  under  me — broke  short  indeed, 
And   showed  me  the  gap  'twixt  what  is,  what 

should  be, 
And  into  what  abysm  the  soul  may  slip," 

— when  one  day  she  of  the  angel-face  spoke 
to  him  and  laid  a  duty  on  his  soul.  Then 
Caponsacchi  awoke :  the  Caponsacchi  God 
was  striving  to  bring  forth.  He  awoke  and 
burst  his  bands  asunder,  as  all  this  poet's 
68 


T'/je  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

heroes  do,  as  we  all  do,  when  the  ray  of 
light  from  God  really  reaches  to  our  soul. 
In  page  after  page  of  the  most  stirring 
emotion,  emotion  which  infects  you  as  you 
read,  and  makes  you  long  for  some  great 
sacrifice  which  will  put  you  also  to  the  test, 
and  burn  up  all  the  dross  and  lurking  mean- 
ness of  your  life  ;  in  page  after  page  of 
burning  words  he  tells  his  judges — for  he  is 
telling  his  story  in  a  court  of  law — of  the 
earthquake  and  avalanche  and  the  fires  which 
unmade  and  remade  his  soul : — 

"Pompilia  spoke  and  I  at  once  received, 
Accepted  my  own  fact,  my  miracle, 
Self-authorised  and  self-explained— she  chose 
To  summon  me  and  dignify  her  choice. 
Afterward  .   .  ." 

Listen  to  the  description  which  follows  of 
a  sinful  man's  past  life,  as  it  appears  to  him 
after  God  has  lifted  him  out  of  it. 

"  Afterward — Oh !     I  gave  a  passing  glance 
To  a  certain  ugly  cloud-shape,  gobiin-shred 
Of  hell-smoke  hurrying  past  the  splendid  moon, 

69 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

Out  now  to  tolerate  no  darkness  more ; 

And  saw  right  thro'  the  thing  that  tried  to  pass 

For  truth  and  solid,  not  an  empty  lie. 

"  By  the  invasion  I  lay  passive  to 
In  rushed  new  things,  the  old  were  swept  away ; 
Alike  abolished — the  imprisonment 
Of  the  outside  air,  the  inside  weight  o'  the  world 
That  pulled  me  down.     Death  meant,  to  spurn 

the  ground, 
Soar  to  the  sky — die  well  and  you  do  that. 
The  very  immolation  made  the  bliss  ; 
Death  was  the  heart  of  life,  and  all  the  harm 
My  folly  had  crouched  to  avoid,  now  proved  a 

veil, 
Hiding  all  gain  my  wisdom  strove  to  grasp. 

"  Into  another  state,  under  new  rule 
I  knew  myself  was  passing  swift  and  sure  ; 
"Whereof  the  initiatory  pang  approached, 
Felicitous  annoy,  as  bitter-sweet 
As  when  the  virgin-band,  the  victors  chaste 
Feel  at  the  end  the  earthly  garments  drop, 
And  rise  with  something  of  a  rosy  shame 
Into  immortal  nakedness  :  so  I 
Lay,  and  let  come  the  proper  throe  would  thrill 
Into  the  ecstasy  and  outthrob  pain." 

Caponsacchi   stops  here   in   the  rush  of  his 
70 


The  SouFs  Leap  to  God 

words  as  if  to  excuse  himself  for  his  vehe- 
mence. You  must  know,  said  he,  that  a 
man  gets  drunk  with  truth,  stagnant  within 
him.  (Which,  by  the  way,  may  explain  the 
accusation  brought  against  the  disciples  after 
Pentecost,  when  the  long  silence  and  deso- 
lation that  followed  upon  Calvary  were 
suddenly  broken  up  by  yon  mighty  rushing 
wind  which  shook  the  house.)  Caponsacchi's 
judges  knew,  as  I  hope  you  who  read  these 
words  know,  that  he  was  not  under  the 
inspiration  of  human  love  in  all  this  vehe- 
mence. No !  the  revelation  of  Pompilia's 
holiness  was  indeed  the  key  which  opened 
the  door  of  Caponsacchi's  heart ;  but  it  was 
God,  not  Pompilia,  who  entered. 

"  You  know   (he  cries)  this  is  not  love,  Sirs  !     It 

is  faith, 
The  feeling   that   there's   God,   He  reigns   and 

rules, 
Out  of  this  low  world."  , 

And  now,   perhaps,  you  know  something 
7i 


T'he  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

of  what  Browning  has  to  say  on  the  subject 
of  Conversion,  or  how  the  Fire  and  Energy 
of  God  rush  in  upon  the  soul.  I  must,  in 
any  case,  pass  on  to  notice  some  things 
which  follow  from  this  teaching,  some  prin- 
ciples which  Browning  strenuously  preaches, 
and  which  we  shall  do  well  to  pay  heed  to. 
Conversion,  he  says,  begins  with  the  vision 
of  God.  This,  as  we  saw,  may  come  in 
countless  ways.  A  light  falls  upon  a  man, 
and  if  it  really  reaches  to  his  soul,  and 
touches  the  quick,  it  will  break  up  the  most 
obstinate  crust  of  sin  and  free  the  man  of 
every  entanglement.  Yes ;  but  it  is  always 
within  the  power  of  a  man  to  be  disobedient 
to  the  heavenly  vision.  Browning  knew  this. 
Perhaps  the  most  solemn  words  he  writes  are 
on  this  very  matter  —  when  he  warns  us 
not  to  trifle  with  the  high  impulses  which 
visit  us;  not  to  turn  away  from  any  private 
call  from  God.  That  to  him  is  the  great 
Tragedy,  when  the  soul  will  not  be  faithful 
to  what  it  sees.  He  has  a  drama  entitled 
72 


The  Soufs  Leap  to  God 

"A  Soul's  Tragedy,"  and  this  is  the  subject 
of  it  all :  how  the  poetry  sank  into  prose  in 
one  particular  case  ;  how  the  light  that  was 
in  a  man  became  darkness.  It  is  not 
Browning's  fault  if  men  slip  away  from  their 
own  high  moments,  for  he  has  warned  them. 
In  such  a  poem  as  uThe  Statue  and  the 
Bust,"  he  appeals  to  men  to  be  immediate 
and  thorough  in  obedience  to  their  solitary 
sense  of  duty.  And  again  and  again,  in 
tingling  words,  he  bids  us  count  all  things 
but  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge 
of  God. 

"  Are  there  not,  Festus,  are  there  not,  dear  Michal, 
Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver — 
One  when —  a  beggar — he  prepares  to  plunge  ? 
One  when — a  prince — he  rises  with  his  pearl  ?  " 

In  such  a  poem  as  "  The  Lost  Leader  "  he 
pours  out  his  pity  and  contempt  for  those 
who  "just  for  a  handful  of  silver,"  or  "just 
for  a  riband  to  stick  in  their  coat,"  forsake 
their  high  calling,  and  "  sink  to  the  rear 
and  the  slaves."     It  is  like  S.  Paul's  short, 

73 


The  Soufs  Leap  to  God 

sad  saying  :  aDemas  hath  forsaken  me,  hav- 
ing loved  this  present  world."  The  Pope, 
in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  says  this  fills 
him  with  despair — when  men  come  down  to 
the  sea-shore,  and  you  say,  "Come  and  I 
will  show  you  where  you  may  find  pearls," 
but  they  go  their  own  way,  muttering 
"Pearls!  We  are  not  wanting  pearls;  we 
are  dredging  for  whelks." 

Browning  is  very  well  aware,  too,  what  are 
the  considerations  which  usually  hinder  men 
from  rising  at  the  blast  of  the  trumpet 
and  going  on  in  strict  obedience  to  God. 
He  knows  the  snare  of  the  world,  the  fear 
of  its  reproach  or  laughter,  the  shrinking 
on  the  part  of  men  from  clear  and  decisive 
acts  of  individuality.  He  knows,  too,  how  a 
man  who  has  once  tasted  the  good  gift  of 
God  in  the  form  of  a  call  or  illumination,  a 
man  who  has  felt  the  power  of  the  world  to 
come,  may  fall  away.  He  knows,  e.g.  how 
a  man  may  persuade  himself  that  he  need 
not  enter  into  life  by    the   strait   gate,   but 

74 


"The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

may  get  to  the  same  end  by  going  on  as  he 
is.  Browning  knows  all  the  tricks  that  a 
man  will  play  upon  himself  rather  than  strike 
his  tent  and  go  out  like  Abraham,  not 
knowing  whither,  but  only  that  God  has 
bidden  him.  You  must  read  for  yourselves 
that  delightful  bantering  with  which  Father 
Ogniben,  in  "A  Soul's  Tragedy,"  pours 
contempt  upon  Chiappino,  who  had  become 
too  comfortable  to  remain  the  reformer  he 
once  was. 

Chiappino,  since  he  had  got  on  in  the 
world  (to  use  the  phrase),  had  changed  his 
views  wofully,  and,  in  spite  of  himself,  was 
somewhat  uneasy.  "  Naturally,"  says  he, 
trying  to  reassure  himself,  "  time  wears  off 
asperities.  We  come  to  see  points  of  sym- 
pathy between  ourselves  and  those  whom 
we  have  been  accustomed  to  look  upon  as 
enemies."  "  Aye,"  says  Ogniben,  "had  the 
young  David  but  sat  first  to  dine  on  his 
cheeses  with  the  Philistine,  he  had  soon 
discovered  abundance  of  such  common  sym- 

75 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

pathies.  He  of  Gath,  it  is  recorded,  was 
born  of  a  father  and  mother,  had  brothers 
and  sisters  like  another  man — they,  no  more 
than  the  sons  of  Jesse,  were  used  to  eat 
each  other.  But  for  the  sake  of  one  broad 
antipathy  that  had  existed  from  the  be- 
ginning, David  slung  the  stone,  cut  off  the 
giant's  head,  made  a  spoil  of  it,  and  after, 
ate  his  cheeses  alone,  with  the  better  appe- 
tite, for  all  I  can  learn." 

On  the  whole,  however,  Browning  has 
more  pity  than  anger  for  those  who  let  pass 
the  fine  moments  in  which  God  is  calling 
them,  and  everything  is  possible.  He  is  full 
of  sorrow  for  those  bright  mornings  which 
sink  into  commonplace  and  grey-skied  after- 
noons. Such  is  the  spirit  of  the  poem  (to 
name  but  one)  called  "A  Toccata  of 
Galuppi's."  We  feel  the  poet's  great 
sorrow,  mixed  with  the  feeling  that  it  was 
their  fate,  that  while  Galuppi  should  be 
playing  his  fine  music,  which  seemed  to  move 
amongst  the  great  mysteries  and  responsi- 
76 


The  SotiFs  Leap  to  God 

bilities,  the  gay  company  were  fooling  away 
their  souls,  dancing  on  the  edge  of  the 
abyss. 

Browning  is  forced  to  face  the  question 
as  to  what  becomes  of  those  who,  in  the 
language  of  "  Hebrews,"  uwere  once  en- 
lightened and  have  tasted  of  the  heavenly  gift, 
and  were  made  partakers  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  have  tasted  the  good  word  of  God,  and 
have  felt  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come," 
and  who  have  meanwhile  fallen  away.  Here 
and  there,  in  the  long  course  of  his  teach- 
ing, Browning  faces  this  question  with  the 
gravity  and  sense  of  the  issues  which  it 
deserves.  His  general  answer  is  that  "  there 
shall  never  be  one  lost  good."  Those  visions, 
and  lights,  those  tastings  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  have  visited  a  life,  cannot  surely  alto- 
gether die.  They  may  be  stirred  into  life 
and  power  again.  Sometimes  it  is  only  when 
a  man  lies  in  a  fever  or  has  gone  mad,  and 
only  from  his  ravings,  that  you  learn  what  a 
man  he  was.  The  inmost  deposit  of  his 
f  77 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

mind  and  heart  becomes  exposed.  So  life 
may  reduce  a  man  to  an  extremity  in  which 
the  world  may  lose  its  hold  upon  him,  and  the 
pure  vision  which  once  blessed  him  for  a  day 
may  resume  its  sway  for  ever. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  Pope's  musings 
in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  we  find 
Browning's  most  deliberate  judgment  upon 
this  solemn  matter.  Guido,  surely  the  most 
abandoned  character  ever  drawn,  is  just  about 
to  be  condemned,  and  the  Pope,  who  is  to 
pass  sentence  upon  him,  falls  into  some  specu- 
lations as  to  what  is  likely  to  become  of 
Guido  hereafter.  He  knows  that  in  this 
region  nothing  is  absolutely  certain,  but  he 
has  a  hope.  It  is  this.  Once  upon  a  time, 
he  says,  he  was  in  Naples.  It  was  the 
darkest  of  nights.  He  seemed  to  be  stand- 
ing in  the  midst  of  black  and  empty  space. 
Suddenly  a  flash  of  lightning  lit  up  the 
sky,  and  the  city  stood  out  plainly — the 
cathedra],  and  "white,  like  a  shroud,"  the 
sea.     Next  moment  all  was  black  again.      In 

78 


The  Soufs  Leap  to  God 

the  same  way  (he  closes)  it  is  possible,  it  is 
his  faint  hope,  that  sudden  death  may  flash 
the  truth  for  one  instant  into  Guido's  soul, 
and  Guido  may  see  God  for  one  moment  and 
be  saved. 

"  Else  I  avert  my  face,  nor  follow  him 
Into  that  sad,  obscure,  sequestered  state 
Where  God  unmakes  but  to  remake  the  soul, 
He  else  made  first  in  vain  ;  which  must  not 
be." 

In  the  well-known  poem  "  Saul,"  Browning 
tells  in  his  own  way  the  story  from  i  Samuel. 
How  David  played  the  harp  before  Saul  who 
was  mad — played  and  played  until  uSaul 
was  refreshed,  and  was  well,  and  the  evil 
spirit  departed  from  him."  He  tells  how 
David's  music  kept  calling  to  Saul  the  man, 
away  beneath  and  behind  Saul,  the  mistake 
and  the  failure.  How  David  sang  and 
played  of  other  days,  of  better  days,  of 
the  days  when  there  was  no  goodlier  man  in 
Israel  than  Saul,  for,  from  his  shoulders  and 

79 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

upwards  he  was  higher  than  any  man  in 
Israel.  And  how,  under  all  the  playing, 
God  was  speaking  to  the  soul  of  Saul, 
"  alluring  him  into  a  quiet  place,  and  speak- 
ing comfortably  to  him,  and  giving  him  the 
valley  of  Achor,  for  a  door  of  hope,  that  he 
might  rejoice  there  as  in  the  days  of  his 
youth."  Just  so,  the  poet  goes  on  to  say, 
God  is  ever  playing  to  the  spirit  of  man 
through  all  the  ages,  ever  speaking  to  his 
child  beneath  all  the  wildness  and  the  mad- 
ness and  disgrace  which  have  gathered  about 
him  in  his  long  absence  from  Home.  God 
is  ever  speaking,  singing,  playing,  satisfying, 
troubling,  piercing,  healing  his  soul,  if  by 
any  means  the  evil  spirit  may  at  length 
depart.  And  here  lies  Browning's  hope  for 
the  world,  right  on  until  the  end  of  the 
days.  Jesus  Christ,  God's  one  harmonious 
Son,  is  now  in  this  world  of  ours  for  ever. 
He  is  one  of  the  great  facts  of  History.  He 
can  never,  never  be  unseated  now.  And  all 
through  the  ages,  as  it  hath  been  it  shall  be 
80 


The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

— wearied  men  and  women,  all  who  are 
perplexed,  beaten,  overborne  by  the  stress 
of  evil  fortune,  or  by  the  tumult  and  bitter- 
ness of  their  own  hearts,  or  by  the  mystery 
and  insecurity  of  our  present  state  of  being, 
all  these,  i.e.  all  living  souls,  will  one  by  one 
in  some  day  or  hour  of  their  anguish  or 
solitude,  remember  Jesus  and  think  of  Him, 
and  as  they  think,  that  pure  ray  of  light, 
that  mild  eye  of  God,  will  fall  steadily  upon 
them,  and  will  overturn  and  overturn  until 
He  comes,  whose  right  it  is  to  occupy  the 
whole  mind  of  man. 

Note : — "  I  don't  see  any  way  out  of  the  up-and- 
down  existence  which  you  describe.  I  feel  more  and 
more  the  horrible  contrast  between  rare  moments 
and  my  average  level  of  achievement.  I  know 
that  it  is  only  a  man's  self  that  realises  this  ;  to 
the  outsider  you  look  much  of  a  piece.  I  do 
believe  that  the  moments  are  the  things  that  give 
one  what  is  best,  and  that  they  don't  really  pass, 
however  much  one  may  fall  away  from  them.  In 
the  greater  part  of  life  it  seems  as  if  one  must 
consent ;  but  the  naked  touch  of  reality,  when  it 

81 


^The  Soul's  Leap  to  God 

does  come,  is  like  flame  through  the  veins,  and 
each  time  it  comes  it  leaves  the  blood  running  a 
little  quicker." — From  Nettleship's  "  Philosophical 
Lectures  and  Remains." 


82 


The  Mystery   of  Evil 


Ill 

"The  Mystery   of  Evil" 

There  is  one  pregnant  line  of  Browning's — 
it  is  in  "  Old  Pictures  in  Florence  " — which, 
when  we  think  steadily  over  it,  seems  to 
gather  into  itself  all  that  he  ever  had  to 
say  concerning  the  problems  which  we  find 
in  human  existence  the  moment  we  begin  to 
reflect.  I  mean  the  line — "  Tis  looking 
downward  that  makes  one  dizzy."  It  is,  he 
would  say,  when  we  keep  our  eyes  upon  the 
bare  facts  of  life  without  the  light  and 
reinforcement  of  faith;  it  is  when  we  for- 
get the  high  end  towards  which  all  things 
may  be  moving,  towards  which  therefore 
they  must  be  moving — since,  according  to 
Browning,  what  may  be  will  be,  and  the  best 
is  just  that  which  shall  happen;  it  is  when 
we  forget  all  this,  when  we  turn  our  eyes 
away  from  the  sky  and  the  sun,  when  we 

85 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

suspect  (instead  of  trusting)  the  song  and  the 
dream,  that  the  circumstances  of  the  human 
lot  seem  harsh  and  dreary  and  desperate. 
But,  what  if  God  be!  If  all  life  is  a  journey 
and  a  process!  If  life,  with  all  its  " shade 
and  shine,"  means  something  grand  and  sure ! 
If  there  remaineth  a  Rest  to  the  people  of 
God,  a  crown  to  each  strenuous  soul, 

"  Then  welcome  each  rebuff 

That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit,  nor  stand,  but  go ! 
Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain  ! 
Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain  ! 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang ;  dare,  never  grudge 
the  throe." 

'Tis  looking  downward  only  that  makes  one 
dizzy.  Only  to  those  who  omit  God  and 
refuse  the  instinct  of  hope,  can  life  appear 
ghastly  or  contemptuous  of  man.     But, 

"  How  soon  a  smile  of  God  can  change  the  world  ! 
How  we  are  made  for  happiness — how  work 
Grows  play,  adversity  a  winning  fight." 

In  our  time,  we  have  become  very  conscious 

of  the  dark  things  that  are  to  be  found  in 

86 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

life — "the  things  hard  to  understand. "  It 
need  not  be  that  we  of  to-day  are  more 
sensitive  than  were  our  fathers  to  the  vast 
amount  of  sufFering  that  there  is  in  the 
world,  or  more  ready  to  be  at  pains  and 
inconveniences  for  its  removal.  But  certainly 
we  speak  more  easily  than  they  did  of  such 
things — of  the  hardness  of  life,  of  the  pain, 
the  poverty  and  the  seeming  injustice.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  we  are  more 
constantly  aware  of  the  problem  of  human 
existence  than  of  its  solution.  We  find 
ourselves  speaking  of  "the  grimness  of  the 
general  human  situation,"  and  we  fasten  on 
a  phrase  like  "  the  pathos  of  life,"  and  make 
much  of  it — it  sounds  so  true  and  real. 
Reasons  might  be  given  why  this  mood  has 
overtaken  us  who  belong  to  this  particular 
time.  For  one  thing,  we  have  just  come 
into  an  enormous  wealth  of  knowledge. 
Astronomy,  geology,  palaeontology — to  name 
but  a  few  of  the  ways  in  which  we  have 
become    conscious    of   the    vast  spaces    that 

87 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

surround  us — these  have  awakened  man  to 
such  a  sense  of  the  infinite  that  he  is  still 
somewhat  overwhelmed.  He  has  not  yet 
found  courage  to  feel  and  to  say  that  all  this 
vastness  and  infinitude  are  only  the  fitting 
circumstances  for  his  vast  and  infinite  spirit. 
Meanwhile,  he  feels  weak  and  almost  con- 
temptible in  presence  of  the  stupendous 
world  which  he  himself  has  discovered.  He 
lies  open  to  gloom.  The  universe,  which,  as 
he  will  understand  when  he  recovers  strength, 
is  really  calling  on  him  to  rise  to  his  true 
stature,  he  thinks,  is  mocking  him  for  his  past 
presumptuousness.  It  is  arguable,  at  least, 
that  this  mood  of  misgiving  and  despondency 
before  the  vastness  of  the  universe,  has  come 
down  from  the  highest  rank  of  thinkers, 
through  minds  less  distinguished,  until  now 
it  is  present  with  us  all  like  a  shadow, 
whenever  we  think  seriously  about  ourselves. 
For,  when  our  strength  is  low,  we  refuse  to 
be  comforted ;  we  look  about  for  those  facts 
in  life  which  seem  to  corroborate  our  fears. 
88 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

And  then,  every  mood  is  absolute  so  long 
as  it  lasts.  When  we  are  suffering  from 
such  a  mood,  when  we  are  too  conscious  of 
the  difficulty  and  stress  of  living,  when  we 
have  an  unhealthy  fondness  for  words  like 
"  pathos "  applied  to  the  ordinary  incidents 
of  a  life,  when  we  are  beginning  to  carry 
our  heart  on  our  sleeve,  and  to  sigh  over 
the  universe  in  public,  then  we  are  in  great 
need  of  a  new  and  stirring  word  of  faith 
from  the  soul  of  some  healthy  man.  God 
has  given  to  each  of  us  the  instinct  to  live 
and  to  cling  to  life.  God  has  given  to 
each  the  instinct  that  somehow  he  is  fit 
to  meet  life,  fit  to  bear  up  and  to  find 
a  way  in  spite  of  all  kinds  of  stress; 
the  instinct  that  life  itself — to  breathe  and 
to  feel — is,  above  all  question,  good.  This 
is  the  unconscious  faith  of  children.  But 
this  instinct  or  unconscious  faith  has  soon  to 
meet  the  challenge  of  the  world.  These  are 
the  days  of  questioning  when  some  grim  fact 
— the  sins  of  men,   or  our  own  sins,  or  the 

89 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

seeming  triumph  of  evil  here,  or  the  heed- 
lessness of  God,  or  death  and  the  grave — 
when  some  such  fact  assails  our  native  gaiety 
so  that  we  can  never  be  the  same.  Then  for* 
the  first  time,  we  see  tired  faces  in  this 
world,  and  life  has  lost  for  ever  its  simplicity. 
At  such  a  point  "  the  native  hue  of  resolu- 
tion is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought."  Our  most  abiding  instinct,  viz., 
the  instinct  to  live  and  to  hope,  is  threatened. 
It  is  then  that  we  need  and  must  have  faith. 
We  must  find  such  a  way  of  looking  at 
things  as  shall  restore  those  energies  which 
doubt  has  numbed  and  frozen.  We  must  find 
some  belief  which  shall  transform  the  world 
for  us,  and  reinforce  the  instinct  of  our 
childhood — to  live  with  our  whole  strength. 

Throughout  his  entire  life  Robert  Browning 
was  facing  those  questions  which  human 
observation  and  experience  put  to  faith, 
those  questions  which  have  arisen  in  every 
age  that  has  been  led  to  reflect.  Those 
facts  and  circumstances  in  life  which  seem 
90 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

hard  to  reconcile  with  faith  in  God,  we  are 
accustomed  to  gather  into  the  phrase  "  the 
mystery  of  evil."  Wordsworth  called  it  "  the 
burden  of  unintelligible  things."  You  know 
what  facts  and  circumstances  are  meant. 
For  example,  "  we  believe  in  God  as  the 
source  and  fountain  of  all  things.  How 
excellent  is  this  world !  How  very  good  and 
fair  is  the  face  of  nature !  How  pleasant  it 
is  to  walk  into  the  green  country  and  to 
'  meditate  in  the  fields  at  the  eventide  ! '  As 
we  look  round,  we  cannot  but  be  persuaded 
that  God  is  most  good,  and  loves  His 
creatures ;  yet  amid  all  the  splendour  we  see 
around  us,  the  question  comes  to  us,  '  But 
why  is  there  pain  in  the  world  ? '  We  see 
that  the  brutes  prey  on  each  other,  inflicting 
violent  and  unnatural  deaths.  And  then 
think  of  the  pain  and  misery  which  show 
themselves  in  the  history  of  man  —  the 
miserable  diseases  and  casualties  of  human 
life,  and  our  sorrows  of  mind.  Then  the 
evils  we  inflict  on  each  other,  our  sins  and 

9i 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

their  awful  consequences.  Now,  why  does 
God  permit  such  evil  in  His  own  world? 
This  is  the  difficulty  which  we  feel  whenever 
we  reflect  upon  life,  and  it  is  a  difficulty 
which  we  are  quite  unable  to  solve.  We  see 
light  here  and  there  upon  the  mystery,  but 
that  only  by  faith,  only  by  resolutely  and 
repeatedly  trusting  it  all,  and  trusting  our- 
selves to  God.  We  open  the  Bible ;  the 
great  mystery  is  acknowledged  there,  but 
after  the  Scriptures  have  said  all  they  have 
to  say,  it  is  left  mysterious.  It  confesses 
that  '  now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly,' 
that  'now  we  see  not  all  things  put  under 
God.'"1  Now  does  not  all  this  seem  to 
contradict  the  name  of  God  as  good  and  as 
supreme?  That  is  the  problem  which, 
through  all  his  life,  Browning  faced  for  his 
own  soul's  sake,  and  for  all  our  sakes.  That 
was  the  life-long  battle  which  he  waged,  to 
secure  and  retain  for  man  the  right  to  be- 
lieve and  to  hope  still  and  for  ever  in  God. 
1J.  H.  Newman. 
92 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

Profoundly  conscious  as  Browning  is  of 
the  dark  cloud  of  human  experience,  con- 
fessing, as  he  does,  again  and  again  that,  if 
he  had  not  faith  in  God,  this  life,  with  all  it 
holds  of  pain  and  woe,  u  with  its  dread 
machinery  of  sin  and  sorrow,"  would  con- 
found him;  nevertheless  he  sees  very  dis- 
tinctly certain  steady  lights  within  the  cloud, 
certain  stars  that  peep  through  the  blackness, 
and  stay.  He  bids  us  look  at  these  lights, 
and  believe  in  those  stars  against  all  the 
blackness.  For  is  it  not  true  that  if  we  can 
find  any  meaning  in  the  mystery  and  problem 
of  our  life,  then  the  blackness  is  past,  we 
lose  from  that  moment  the  feeling  that  there 
is  no  intelligence  in  the  world,  no  sense,  no 
purpose  ?  When  we  see  the  meaning  or  any 
meaning  we  can  at  least  bid  our  souls  be 
patient. 

In  the  first  place,  Browning  has  no 
difficulty  in  showing  us  that  "  the  evil "  in 
life  is  just  the  necessary  opposition  to  "  the 
good."      We    could    not    have    good   as  we 

G  93 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

know  it  if  evil  as  we  know  it  did  not  exist. 
For  example :  virtue  is  possible  only  in  a 
world  where  there  is  temptation. 

"Why  comes  temptation,  but  for  man  to  meet 
And  master  and  make  crouch  beneath  his  foot, 
And  so  be  pedestall'd  in  triumph  ?  " 

If  there  were  no  hardness  and  pressure  in 
life,  there  could  not  be  such  qualities  of  the 
soul  as  patience  and  heroism.  If  there  were 
no  sickness,  poverty,  death,  there  could  be  no 
sympathy  or  pity  or  kindness — "  For  how 
can  man  love  but  what  he  yearns  to  help  ? " 
If  there  were  no  sin  in  this  world,  if  there 
were  no  sad  failures  amongst  us,  then  there 
could  be  no  forgiveness,  and  the  purest  tears 
would  never  have  been  shed — the  tears  of 
erring  children  coming  home,  and  the  tears 
of  those  at  home  who  go  out  to  meet  them 
coming.  If  life  were  not  a  place  of  much 
darkness  and  mystery  we  had  never  learned 
to  kneel  and  to  pray;  we  had  never  dis- 
covered our  need  of  God.     In  short,  we  do 

94 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

not  see  how  the  soul  of  man,  as  we  know  it, 
could  have  emerged  at  all,  or  could  even  now 
remain  alive  and  eager,  were  it  not  that  we 
have  been  placed  in  a  world  which  is  ever 
forcing  us  in  upon  ourselves,  ever  provoking 
the  things  of  the  Spirit — joy  and  grief, 
patience,  faith  and  prayer.  All  our  peculiar 
qualities  as  men,  all  the  signs  we  have  that 
we  are  something  more  than  mortal,  have 
appeared  within  us  simply  because  life  is 
what  it  is. 

"  All  to  the  very  end  is  trial  in  life  ; 
At  this  stage  is  the  trial  of  my  soul, 
Danger  to  face  or  danger  to  refuse." 

This  leads  to  another  standpoint  from  which 
Browning  sees  and  interprets  "  the  evil "  in 
life. 

Apart  from  the  question,  which  really  it  is 
idle  to  raise,  viz.,  whether  human  existence 
could  have  been  otherwise  ordained,  e.g. 
without  the  possibility  of  pain  or  the  in- 
trusion of  sin,  it  is  certain  that  life  as  we 
have    it    is    wonderfully    contrived   for    the 

95 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

stirring    up    of   the    soul,   and  for  the  per- 
fecting of  human  character.      "  This  life   is 
training  and  a  passage."     "The  moral  sense 
grows  but  by   exercise."      In    "Rabbi   ben 
Ezra,"  Browning  raises  an  objection  to  his 
own  teaching  and  answers  it.     A  man  might 
say  as  he  reflected  upon  the  vicissitudes  of  a 
life,  thinking  how  we  are  hurled  from  change 
to  change  unceasingly,  how  we  are  evidently 
in  the  hands  of  One   who   lifts  us  up  and 
casts   us   down — such    an   observer    of    the 
human  lot  might  say,  "  who  are  we ;  what  is 
a  man  that  he  should  have  hopes  for  himself? 
He  seems  to  be  the  victim,  not  the  master  of 
his   fate.      He   is   the   plaything  of  circum- 
stances ;  he  is  like  clay  in  the  Potter's  hand." 
Just  so,  says  Browning,  we  are  like  clay  in 
the  Potter's  hand.     Life,  like   the  Potter's 
wheel,    bruises  us,   sets  out   as  if   to    make 
something  of  us,  then  when  we  have  almost 
reached  the  form  of  that  particular  thing, 
the  wheel  rolls  over  us ;  life  beats  us  down 
and  unmakes  us.     All  this  seems  to  urge  us 
96 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

to  personal  despair;  it  seems  to  mean  that 
we  are  the  playthings  of  our  Creator,  mere 
clay  in  the  Potter's  hand.  But  suppose  we 
take  that  rank — clay  in  the  Potter's  hand. 
Why,  it  is  just  there  we  base  our  confidence 
and  build  our  song.  For  we  cannot  believe 
that  the  Creator  has  playthings  and  least  of 
all  that  He  plays  with  souls.  A  Potter  is  an 
intelligent  being.  He  does  not  work  with 
the  clay  for  the  mere  sake  of  working.  He 
works,  on  the  one  hand,  for  the  sake  of  the 
clay,  and  on  the  other  to  show  his  skill  and 
complete  his  design.  Thus,  the  great  Potter 
is  making  something  of  us.  Look  not  at  the 
beginning  but  at  the  end.  Think  not  of  the 
clay  which  you  are,  but  of  the  cup  which  you 
will  be  when  the  Potter  is  done  with  you. 
Once  more  "  'tis  looking  downward  that 
makes  one  dizzy  "  and  desperate.  Think  of 
the  dignity  that  may  await  a  cup.  Think 
how  one  day  the  table  may  be  spread  in 
heaven,  and  how  the  Master  of  the  Feast 
may  lift  the  cup — you,  that  is  to  say,  made 

97 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

perfect  by  the  wheel  of  life  !     Thus  you  may 
give  Him  pleasure  !     Wherefore 


"  Look  not  thou  down  but  up 
To  uses  of  a  cup, 
The  festal  board,  lamps  flash  and  trumpet  peal, 
The  new  wine's  foaming  flow, 
The  Master's  lips  aglow ! 
Thou  heaven's  consummate  cup  what  needst  thou 
with  earth's  wheel? 


"  So,  take  and  use  Thy  work, 
Amend  what  flaws  may  lurk, 
What  strain  o'  the  stuff,  what  warpings  past  the 
aim  ! 

My  times  be  in  Thy  hand! 
Perfect  the  cup  as  planned  ! 
Let  age  approve  of  youth,  and  death  complete  the 
same  !  "  (Rabbi  ben  Ezra.) 

That  is  a  line  of  thought  to  which  Browning 
comes  back  and  back.  Life  is  a  training,  an 
education  of  the  soul.  All  the  circumstances 
which  beset  man  in  his  mortal  passage  have 
some  high  reason  which  the  man  himself  may 

98 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

even  now  be  aware  of,  and  of  which  he  will 
one  day  be  aware. 

"  Man  is  not  God,  but  hath  God's  end  to  serve, 
A  Master  to  obey,  a  course  to  take, 
Somewhat  to  cast  off,  somewhat  to  become. 
Grant  this  ;  then  man  must  move  from  old  to 

new, 
From  vain  to  real,  from  mistake  to  fact, 
From  what  once  seemed  good,  to  what  now 

proves  best. 
How  could  man  have  progression  otherwise  ?  " 

The  very  burdensomeness  of  life,  its  tear  and 
wear  and  pressure,  is  the  surest  proof  to  him 
that  life  means  something  vast  and  good, 
"Is  it  for  nothing?"  he  asks,  "we  grow  old 
and  weak,  we  whom  God  loves  ? "  And 
answers,  No !  but  because,  "  when  pain  ends, 
gain  ends  too." 

For  Browning,  then,  the  whole  of  human 
travail  is  penetrated  with  a  purpose,  and 
justified  by  its  blessed  consequence.  Life  is 
the  pressure  which  brings  the  wine  from  the 
grape,  the  soul   from  the  flesh.     Life  is  the 

99 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

burden  and  mystery  which  discovers  to  a  man 
his  strange  forlornness  of  spirit,  but  in  that 
same  moment  discovers  to  him  his  kinship 
with  the  hidden  God. 

"  Beyond  the  tale,  I  reach  into  the  dark, 
Feel  v/hat  I  cannot  see,  and  still  faith  stands. 
I  can  believe  this  dread  machinery 
Of  sin  and  sorrow,  would  confound  me  else 
Devised — all  pain  at  most  expenditure 
Of  pain  by  Who  devised  pain — to  evolve 
By  new  machinery  in  counterpart, 
The  moral  qualities  of  man — how  else  ? 
To  make  him  love  in  turn  and  be  beloved, 
Creative  and  self-sacrificing  too, 
And  thus  eventually  God-like. 

Enable  man  to  wring  out  of  all  pain 
All  pleasure  for  a  common  heritage 
To  all  eternity." 

{The  Pope,  1 3  72.) 

And  so  the  soul  that  is  sure  of  God  sees 
through  and  accepts  the  whole  scheme  of 
pain  and  trial.  Such  an  one — one,  that  is  to 
say,  who  is  willing  to  count  all  things  but 
loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  of 
100 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

God — will  not  be  borne  away  from  his 
centre  and  fund  by  any  assault  of  the  world. 
The  more  his  faith  is  tried,  the  deeper  will  it 
hide  itself  in  God.  When  the  soul  cannot 
see  clearly,  by  reason  of  the  darkness  in 
things,  it  will  cherish  itself  and  sing  and 
pray. 

There  is  an  old  German  tale  which  might 
be  a  parable  of  the  purpose  in  our  life  of  the 
unintelligible  things.  The  story  is  told  of  a 
baron  who,  having  grown  tired  of  the  gay 
and  idle  life  of  the  Court,  asked  leave  of  his 
King  to  withdraw  from  it.  He  built  for 
himself  a  fort  on  a  rugged  rock,  beneath 
which  rolled  the  Rhine.  There  he  dwelt 
alone.  He  hung  wires  from  one  wing  of  the 
fort  to  the  other,  making  an  iEolian  harp,  on 
which  the  winds  might  play  to  solace  him. 
But  many  days  and  nights  had  passed,  and 
winds  had  come  and  gone,  yet  never  had 
there  been  music  from  that  harp.  And  the 
baron  interpreted  the  silence  as  the  sign  of 
God's  unremoved  displeasure.     One  evening 

IOI 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

the  sky  was  torn  with  wild,  hurrying  clouds, 
the  sun  was  borne  away  with  a  struggle,  and 
as  night  fell  a  storm  broke  out  which  shook 
the  very  earth.  The  baron  walked  restlessly 
through  his  rooms  in  loneliness  and  dis- 
quiet. At  length  he  went  out  into  the  night, 
but  stopped  short  upon  the  threshold.  He 
listened  and  behold  the  air  was  full  of  music. 
His  iEolian  harp  was  singing  with  joy  and 
passion  high  above  the  wildness  and  the 
storm.  Then  the  baron  knew.  Those  wires, 
which  were  too  thick  to  give  out  music  at  the 
call  of  common  days,  had  found  their  voice  in 
a  night  of  stress  and  storm.  It  needed  the 
uttermost  assault  of  nature  to  awake  the 
slumbering  song.  So  may  it  be  with  souls 
beset  by  life.  All  things  are  for  our  sakes — 
and  we  need  them  all.  All  things  come — 
difficulty,  defeat,  disease,  pain,  old  age,  death 
in  order  that  a  man  may  discover  the  depths 
and  secrets  of  his  own  nature,  and  from  those 
depths  cry  out.  u  Strain  "  is  a  word  which 
means  stress ;  but  it  is  likewise  a  word  which 

I02 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

means  song ;  and  it  is  only  on  a  strained  wire 
that  the  music  sleeps.     Thus 

"  In  the  eye  of  God 
Pain  may  have  purpose  and  be  justified." 

At  this  point  we  must  observe  that  Brown- 
ing always  treats  "  the  mystery  of  evil "  as  a 
personal  problem.  That  is  to  say,  he  refuses 
to  speak  for  others.  He  will  speak  only  as 
he  knows.  He  will  only  say  how  the  human 
lot  appears  to  him,  and  what  he  feels  to  be 
its  intention.  He  will  speak  only  for  himself. 
But  it  is  very  evident  that  in  Browning's 
opinion,  if  men  were  thorough  and  honest 
with  themselves,  they  would  speak  as  he 
speaks.  They  would  confess  that  the  experi- 
ence which  each  man  meets  in  life  fits  that 
man,  body  and  soul ;  and  that  if  he  would  only 
yield  to  its  warning  and  appeal,  his  particular 
lot  would  make  the  best  possible  man  of  him. 
That  is  all  that  Browning  will  claim  as  certain. 
He  believes  more  than  that.  He  has  his  own 
firm  hope  concerning  the  things  which  lie 
103 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

beyond  his  knowledge.  But  he  always  comes 
back  from  any  venture  of  imagination,  back  to 
the  things  he  knows,  because  they  are  within 
himself.  In  u  Ferishtah' s  Fancies,"  which 
is  the  poet's  most  mature  and  deliberate  read- 
ing of  life — and  in  the  poem  entitled  "  A 
Bean  Stripe,"  someone  asks — 

"Sir,  be  frank! 
A  good  thing  or  a  bad  thing,  life  is  which  ? 
Shine  and  shade,  happiness  and  misery 
Battle  it  out  thenj  which  force  beats,  I  ask?" 

To  which  Ferishtah  (who  is  assuredly 
Browning  himself)  makes  reply,  "I  will 
not  answer  such  a  question."  No  man 
can  answer  these  ultimate  questions  for 
another.  The  answer  to  such  a  question  is 
valid  only  for  him  who  makes  it.  A  soul's 
experience  is  not  transferable.  Each  man  is 
the  centre  of  his  own  circumstances.  The 
same  things  are  not  the  same  to  different 
men.  "For  example,"  says  Ferishtah,  "it  is 
reported  that  there  are  people  who  live  in 
104 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

lands  far  North,  where  there  is  snow,  and 
where  the  rivers  congeal  in  their  beds.  To 
me,  living  in  Persia,  such  a  thing  seems  quite 
impossible ;  and  yet  people  do  live  in  such 
regions,  and  find  life  bearable.  It  is  the  same 
regarding  the  general  mysteriousness  and 
difficulty  of  human  existence.  I  can  speak 
only  as  I  know.  That  is  sufficient  for  me. 
I  have  not,  for  example,  explored  the  sun  ; 
enough  for  me  to  feel  its  warmth.  Let  me 
thank  Him  who  set  the  sun  in  the  heavens, 
and  Who  made  me  so  that  I  can  feel  the 
warmth  and  be  content.  Behind  all  those 
conveniences  and  accommodations  which  I 
find  in  life,  I  like  to  feel  the  kindness  of  God 
to  me  personally.  Therefore  I  praise  and 
worship  Him. 

"  The  sense  within  me  that  I  owe  a  debt 
Assures  me — somewhere  must  be  somebody 
Ready  to  take  his  due." 

But  perhaps  you  may  say,  "  I  have  no  right 
to  leap  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  per- 

*°5 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

sonal  God.  Why  not  worship  the  sun  or 
honour  the  laws  of  nature?"  To  which 
Ferishtah  replies  with  a  stroke  which  Brown- 
ing loved.     "My  friend,"  he  says, — 

"  Suppose  thou  visit  my  lord  Shalim  Shah, 
Bringing  thy  tribute  as  appointed.     Here 
Come  I  to  pay  my  due.     Whereat  one  slave 
Obsequious  spreads  a  carpet  for  thy  foot. 
His  fellow  offers  sweetmeats,  while  a  third 
Prepares  a  pipe :  what  thanks    or  praise    have 

they  ? 
Such  as  befit  prompt  service.     Gratitude 
Goes  past  them  to  the   Shah   whose  gracious 

nod 
Set  all  the  sweet  civility  at  work !  " 

Or,- 

"I  eat  my  apple,  relish  what  is  ripe. 
But,  thank  an  apple  !     He  who  made  my  mouth 
To  masticate,  my  palate  to  approve, 
My  maw  to  further  the  concoction — Him 
I    thank,   but    for    whose  work  the   orchard's 

wealth 
Might    prove    so    many    gall-nuts  —  stocks   or 

stones, 
For    aught    that    I  should    think   or   know    or 

care." 

1 06 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

In  another  of  Ferishtah's  Fancies — the 
one  entitled  "  Cherries  " — the  poet  makes  the 
same  defence  of  faith,  and  approaches  the 
problem  of  existence  from  the  personal  stand- 
point. "Suppose,"  he  says,  "a  stranger 
visiting  the  great  palace  at  Ispahan.  He 
moves  through  the  spacious  halls  and  corri- 
dors, observes  the  comfort  of  the  place,  and 
the  wonder  and  the  beauty.  At  last  he  sees 
his  name,  his  very  name,  on  the  door  of  a 
room — inviting  him  to  enter.  He  looks  in 
and  sees  a  nook  fitted  exactly  for  him,  soul 
and  body — the  very  colour  of  slippers  that 
he  likes,  lamp,  books,  and  every  thing  he 
would  have  had.  What  does  the  stranger 
do  ?  What  should  he  do  ?  Go  in,  sit  down, 
put  on  the  slippers  ?  Yes,  but  that  only,  or 
that  first  ?     No  ! 

"  Who  lives  there 
That  let  me  wonder  at." 

Just  so,  the  soul  which  has  become  aware  of 

its  private  blessings,  aware  of  a  touch  here 

107 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

and  there  of  the  hand  of  God,  cannot  be 
hindered  from  calling  upon  itself  to  praise 
the  Great  Good  God  who  contrived  life  as  it 
is.  The  great  and  supreme  gift  of  life  to 
us  who  toil  and  suffer — and  the  harder  our 
toil  is  the  greater  a  blessing  is  the  gift — the 
great  and  supreme  gift  of  life,  I  say,  is  just 
the  thought  of  God  caring  for  the  souls  He 
made.  And  none  can  hinder  me  who  have 
felt  the  goodness  of  God,  from  believing 
that  all  the  magnificence  of  nature,  the 
spacious  heavens,  the  infinite  sea,  the  whole 
region  of  the  vast  and  the  beautiful  is, 
by  God's  appointment,  the  fitting  pomp 
and  pageantry  of  even  the  least  of  His 
children. 

In  the  poem,  "A  Pillar  at  Sebzevar," 
Browning  goes  over  the  same  line  of  proof 
once  more — as  if  it  were  the  teaching  on 
the  burden  of  unintelligible  things  in  which 
he  himself  came  to  have  most  confidence. 
Tf  you  are  sure  of  any  blessing  in  your  life, 
any  real  ground  of  gratitude,  hold  to  it. 
1 08 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

Believe  in  it.  That  is  for  you  a  star  in  the 
steadfast  heavens,  although  the  sky  may  be 
black  next  moment  and  no  star  be  seen  for 
many  days.  Trust  in  the  star  which  came 
and  went.  It  will  shine  again.  Cherish 
your  personal  blessings,  and  by  their  inspira- 
tion meet  all  that  life  may  bring. 

"  So  let  us  say — not  '  since  we  know  we  love/ 
But  rather,  since  we  love,  we  know  enough." 

Suppose  you  are  travelling  through  the  desert 
and  are  athirst.  You  come  upon  a  hollow  in 
the  sand  which  holds  pure  water.  There  is 
only  one  scoopful.  What  will  you  do? 
Will  you  say,  "  No  !  I  will  not  take  a  drop 
of  that  water  until  I  have  dug  to,  and  have 
discovered,  the  source  and  fountainhead  ? " 
Not  so  you  act.  You  kneel  and  take  the 
scoopful.  Next  moment  the  hollow  fills 
again,  and  again  you  empty  it  until  your 
thirst  is  slaked.  Just  so  must  we  do  in  this 
world — 


H 


IO9 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

11  Drain  the  sufficient  drop  and  praise  what  checks 
The  drouth  that  glues  thy  tongue — what  more 

would  help 
A  brimful  cistern  ?     Ask  the  cistern's  boon 
When  thou  wouldst  solace  camels  :  in  thy  case 
Relish  the  drop  and  love  the  loveable." 

To  Browning,  as  he  looks  into  "  the  mystery 
of  evil,"  there  is  no  question  or  doubt  as  to 
how  all  things  shall  end.  The  evil  will  pass 
whenever  its  use  is  done.  "  The  child  grown 
man,  you  burn  the  rod."  So  there  is  coming 
a  time  "when  the  uses  of  labour  will  be 
surely  done."  The  very  fact  that  life  gives 
us  the  impression  that  it  is  incomplete,  is 
proof  that  man  carries  about  with  him  the 
hope  of  a  better  than  this,  and  of  a  best  of 
all.  Somewhere  in  the  course  of  his  journey 
man  has  seen  the  land  of  Promise,  or  he  has 
dreamed  of  it.  If  it  was  a  dream,  it  was  too 
good  not  to  be  true.  Man  lives  by  hopes 
utoo  fair  to  turn  out  false."  For  Browning 
cannot  believe  in  a  final  contradiction  between 
man  and  the  world  as  it  exists  for  God. 
1 10 


The  Mystery  ofJlvil 

The  best  is  bound  to  be.  Sometimes  he 
tries  to  think  the  dread  alternative,  to  realise 
what  it  would  be  "  if  all  were  error."  But 
his  mind  sickens  before  the  awful  prospect, 
and  the  poet  rightly  takes  that  sickness,  that 
first  approach  of  madness,  as  corroboration  of 
his  instinctive  faith  in  the  triumph  of  God  in 
the  fulness  of  time. 

Students  of  Browning  must  have  in  mind 
many  glowing  passages  in  which,  after  pages 
and  pages  of  hard  thinking  maybe,  the  poet 
utters  the  everlasting  hope  of  man.  For 
never  is  Browning's  voice  so  steady  and 
melodious,  never  do  the  words  come  so 
simply  and  surely  as  when  he  is  looking  away 
to  the  end  of  the  days. 

"Therefore  to  whom   turn  I  but  to  Thee,  the 

ineffable  Name  ? 
Builder  and  maker  Thou,  of  houses  not  made 

with  hands  ! 
What,  have  fear  of  change  from  Thee  who  art 

ever  the  same  ? 
Doubt  that  Thy  power  can  fill  the  heart  that 

Thy  power  expands  ? 

ill 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

There  shall  never   be   one  lost   good  !     What 

was  shall  live  as  before  ; 
The  evil  is  null,  is  nought,  is   silence  implying 

sound, 
What  was  good  shall  be  good,  with,  for  evil,  so 

much  good  more : 
On   the  earth  the  broken  arcs  ;   in  the  heaven 

the  perfect  round." 

Or    take    the    lines    from    the    short    piece 
a  Apparent  Failures  " — 

"  My  own  hope  is,  a  sun  will  pierce 
The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched ; 

That  after  last  returns  the  first, 
Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched, 
That  what  began  best,  can't  end  worst, 
Nor  what  God  blessed  once,  prove  accurst." 

Though,  for  my  own  part,  best  of  all  I  like 
the  old  Pope's  stately  hope  : — 

"  While  I  see  day  succeed  the  deepest  night 
How  can  I  speak  but  as  I  know  ? — my  speech 
Must  be,  throughout  the  darkness,  '  it  will  end  : 
The  light  that  did  burn  will  burn.' 

"So,  never  I  miss  footing  in  the  maze, 
No  !   I  have  light  nor  fear  the  dark  at  all." 

112 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

You  may  have  gone  out  on  some  still  clear 
night  and  looked  up  into  the  sky.  There, 
in  the  west,  was  the  crescent  moon.  You 
know  at  a  glance  that  that  moon  will  grow. 
The  broken  arc  suggests  the  perfect  round. 
Nay,  more ;  look  again  if  the  night  be  fine. 
Do  you  not  see  with  your  unaided  eye  the 
rest  of  the  circle  traced  dimly  on  the  azure 
sky?  Well,  that  crescent  moon  is  like  this 
human  life  of  ours.  The  shadow  which 
hides  the  moon's  full  face  is  the  mystery 
which  broods  over  and  solemnises  our 
passage  through  this  earthly  scene.  But 
just  as  when  we  look  at  the  crescent  moon 
we  feel  instinctively  that  one  day  it  will  be 
complete,  so  the  very  shortcoming  and  in- 
completeness of  our  present  life — the  pain, 
the  sin,  the  reign  of  death — all  these  do  but 
promise  a  future  time  of  triumphant  and 
unhindered  light.  And  just  as  on  a  clear 
still  night,  our  eyes  can  already  see  the  very 
outline  of  the  perfect  moon,  so  when  our 
own  soul  is  quiet  and  still,  when  there  is  no 

1J3 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

cloud,  no  bitterness  between  our  own  heart 
and  God,  then  even  here  and  now  we  can  see 
by  faith  the  tracing  of  that  perfected  order, 
the  walls  of  the  Holy  Jerusalem,  the  fair 
fields  where  "  there  shall  be  no  more  death, 
neither  sorrow  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there 
be  any  more  pain,  for  the  former  things  are 
passed  away." 

But  the  poet  utters  a  warning.  As  we 
have  seen,  he  is  very  sure  of  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  good.  This,  however,  only  on 
one  condition — the  condition,  namely,  that 
every  soul  which  knows  the  good  shall 
strive  to  the  uttermost  for  the  eventual 
victory. 

"  God's  in  His  heaven, 

All's  right  with  the  world  !  " 

may  be  a  craven  cry.  It  may  mean  nothing 
more  than  that  things  are  bound  to  end 
rightly,  that  good  is  bound  to  prevail,  no 
matter  how  we  acquit  ourselves.  But, 
according  to  Browning,  and  according  to 
114 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

the  fact,  good  which  is  not  meanwhile  in 
arms  against  evil  is  a  mere  name. 

"  A  thing  is  existent  only  while  it  acts, 
Does  as  designed,  else  a  nonentity ; 
For  what  is  an  idea  unrealised." 

Good  will  triumph  if  every  soul  which  knows 
the  good  will  hate  and  strive  against  the 
evil.  The  only  proof  that  good  will  prevail 
at  the  last  is  that  it  prevails  now.  Knowing 
this,  Browning  is  ever  bidding  men  be  faith- 
ful to  themselves,  and  to  God  wherever  they 
are.  To  obey  on  the  instant  the  holy 
impulse. 

"  Enough,  for  I  may  die  this  very  night, 

And  how  should  I  dare  die,  this  man  let  live! 

Quis  pro  Domino, 
Who  is  on  the  Lord's  side  ? " 

"  I !  "  cries  the  old  Pope. 

Granted  this  strenuous  behaviour  on  the 
part  of  men,  each  setting  himself  against 
the  enemy  at  his  own  door,  each  defending 
the  portion  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which 
passes   by    his    feet,    each    one    addressing 

"5 


The  Mystery  of  Evil 

himself  to  the  evil  and  the  cruel  and  the 
contradictory  which  he  sees  and  knows,  then 
the  final  triumph  of  the  good  is  assured. 
And  besides,  it  is  only  such  faithful  fighters 
who  are  sure  of  the  end.  Only  to  them,  to 
the  earnest  toilers,  sufferers,  doers,  does  life 
feel  real  and  full  of  promise,  for  their  faith  is 
helping  to  create  the  very  state  of  things 
for  which  thev  look  and  labour. 


116 


The  Incarnation 


IV 

The  Incarnation 

Robert  Browning  himself  would  have  been 
the  first  to  admit  that  it  mattered  very  little 
what  he,  a  solitary  man,  happened  to  think 
of  those  questions  which  human  existence 
raises,  or  what  he  happened  to  believe 
concerning  that  ultimate  Reality  which  is  in 
and  through  and  over  all  things,  and  in  and 
through  and  over  man.  He  would  have 
been  the  first  to  say — "  things  are  what 
they  are,  and  the  end  will  be  what  it  will 
be — no  matter  what  you  or  I  may  think." 
For  we  do  not  alter  the  nature  of  things 
when  we  happen  to  look  at  them.  They 
are  what  they  are,  and  we  are  being  borne 
on  the  breast  of  them — whether  we  struggle 
or  consent — towards  the  untraversed  land. 
Browning  himself  would  have  been  the  first 
to  protest  against  the  weakness  of  paying 
119 


The  Incarnation 

undue  respect  to  any  man's  particular  scheme 
of  things,  or  of  supposing  that  what  any 
man  may  say  concerning  such  mysteries  as 
God  and  the  soul,  makes  these  vast  names 
less  mysterious. 

For  example,  the  truth  about  the  Incarna- 
tion is  what  it  is,  regardless  of  those  ventures 
of  the  mind  whereby  men  have  tried,  through 
all  ages,  to  realise  the  mystery  of  it.  Brown- 
ing did  not  invent  the  Incarnation  as  an 
escape  from  the  difficulties  of  faith.  He 
found  the  Incarnation  and  Belief  in  the 
Incarnation  already  in  the  world,  and  all 
that  he  has  to  say  can  only  illuminate  or 
darken — it  cannot  threaten  or  change — the 
Fact  itself. 

Speaking  for  myself  I  shall  never  cease  to 
be  thankful  for  the  guidance  which  I  have 
received  from  Robert  Browning  in  this  great 
matter  of  faith.  It  was  a  great  blessing — 
in  which  I  wish  to  see  the  hand  of  God — 
that  just  as  I  reached  the  age  when  a  man 
should  begin  to  think  for  himself,  the  age 
1 20 


The  Incarnation 

when  he  becomes  aware,  perhaps,  of  the 
apparent  contradiction  between  faith  and  the 
world,  when  the  instinctive  confidence  of 
childhood  needs  to  be  reinforced  by  some 
belief  which  satisfies  both  mind  and  heart — 
it  was  a  great  blessing  that  just  then  I 
opened  "Browning."  He  knew  my  diffi- 
culties, and  he  showed  no  weakness  toward 
"  my  sins  and  faults  of  youth."  He  taught 
me  that  the  pure  in  heart  alone  see  God. 
That  God  is  silent  to  those  who  will  not 
bring  heart  as  well  as  mind,  their  whole 
emotional  and  moral  life,  as  well  as  their 
powers  of  thought  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  Unseen.  He  made  me  aware  of  the 
meaning  of  those  words — "by  faith  we 
understand  that  the  worlds  were  made  by 
God."  That  we  understand — by  faith.  It 
was  a  good  thing  to  be  compelled  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  thought  and  intense  imagination 
before  accepting  peacefully  and  for  ever 
those  supernatural  facts  which  rise  to  our 
minds  when  we  think  of  God — The  Father, 

121 


The  Incarnation 

Son  and  Holy  Ghost.  It  was  a  good  thing 
that  one  was  not  allowed  to  receive  the 
things  of  faith  on  mere  hearsay,  but  only 
after  the  pains  of  thought  and  feeling.  It 
was  a  good  thing  that  those  supernatural 
truths — those  truths  concerning  God  which 
lie  at  the  heart  of  the  Catholic  Creed — 
should  have  come  home  to  a  man  only  when 
his  heart  and  mind  had  become  alive  to  the 
awful  need  of  God.  Otherwise,  one  might 
have  received  those  great  truths  as  mysteries 
altogether  remote  from  our  actual  life  and 
not  to  be  embraced  by  the  living  heart  and 
flesh.  All  that  we  believe  concerning  God 
must  indeed  be  full  of  mystery,  but  Browning 
— I  speak  for  myself — has  done  much  to 
make  the  mystery  no  more  a  mystery  of 
darkness  but  of  light.  He  helps  one  not 
only  to  believe  the  ultimate  matters  of  faith ; 
but  to  imagine  them.  Take  the  doctrine  of 
the  Incarnation.  Christians  confess  that 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  took  on  flesh 
and  became  man,  that  he  might  bring  us  to 

122 


The  Incarnation 

God.  They  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  came 
out  from  God,  and  was  and  is  eternally  in 
the  bosom  of  God.  That  is  what  the  Church 
asserts  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. 
And  now,  conceive  how  hopelessly  mysterious 
it  all  is.  How  our  poor  minds,  however  willing, 
break  down  as  they  try  to  comprehend  all  that 
such  a  faith  implies  !  That  the  Almighty  God 
has  had  with  Him  from  all  eternity,  Another, 
His  Like  and  Equal;  that  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  He  came  out  from  God  and  walked  for 
a  space  upon  our  earth  —  how  hard  and 
impossible  to  realise  it !  Yet  such  is  the 
Stupendous  Fact  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation  asserts.  Now,  I  rise  from  another 
long  study  of  Browning,  thoroughly  convinced 
that  he  for  one  held  that  faith  in  its  essence, 
with  his  whole  strength.  He  may  have 
taken  hold  of  this  belief  with  the  clutch  of 
despair  or  of  death.  He  may  have  flung 
himself  into  the  arms  of  it  only  when  he 
became  aware  of  the  abyss  which  waits  for 
him  and  for  us  all  if  such  a  faith  be  not 
123 


The  Incarnation 

true.  He  may  have  rushed  into  belief  in  sheer 
horror  of  the  blank  alternative.  But  even 
were  we  to  admit  that,  it  would  not  weaken 
his  testimony.  The  things  of  God  are  never 
learned  easily  ;  they  come  to  us  for  the  first 
time  in  hours  of  darkness  and  necessity. 
They  come  at  our  cries  and  prayers,  however 
mildly  they  may  remain  with  us  in  after 
years.  They  come  at  first  through  pain 
and  a  certain  solitude  of  the  soul.  It  may 
well  be  that  Browning  was  led  seriously  to 
believe  in  the  Incarnation,  in  the  first  instance, 
because  he  felt  that  some  such  overwhelming 
proof  of  God  and  of  His  love  was  needed  to 
out-weigh  the  appalling  misery  which  he 
found  in  the  world  as  it  is.  He  himself  con- 
fesses more  than  once  that  it  is  only  his  faith 
in  God,  as  God  has  revealed  Himself  in  Christ, 
which  stands  between  him  and  despair. 

"  I  can  believe  this  dread  machinery 
Of  sin  and  sorrow  would  confound  me  else 
Devised — all  pain  at  most  expenditure 
Of  pain  by  Who  devised  pain." 

124 


The  Incarnation 

That  is  to  say,  the  burden  which  falls  upon 
his  spirit  as  he  beholds  the  suffering  and  the 
incompleteness  here,  is  relieved  and  can  at 
least  be  borne  when  he  remembers  that  God 
Himself  has  entered  into  the  region  of  pain, 
u  bearing  our  sins  and  carrying  our  sorrows." 
In  "  A  Death  in  the  Desert "  we  have  the 
same  confession,  that  all  is  well  if  in  Jesus 
Christ  man  saw  for  once  the  Face  of  God. 

"I  say,  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solved  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it." 

In  "  Paracelsus  "  he  makes  Festus  cry  out,  in 
an  hour  of  sore  darkness — 

"  God,   Thou   art   Love  !      I   build  my   faith  on 
that." 

But,  to  say  that  Browning  clung  to  the  Incar- 
nation of  God  in  Christ  only  as  a  drowning 
man  clings  to  a  life-belt,  "lest  the  proud 
waters  should  overwhelm  him,"  is  only  to 
place  Browning  in  this  matter  by  the  side  of 
S.  Paul.  How  are  those  lines  of  Browning's 
i  125 


The  Incarnation 

different  in  their  tone  or  in  their  philosophy 
from  those  strong  cries  of  the  Apostle  with 
which  he  swept  the  midnight  from  his  soul  ? 
How  do  they  differ  from  S.  Paul's — aHe 
that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  freely 
gave  Him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  He  not 
with  Him  also  freely  give  us  all  things  ?  "  or 
from  that  "Quis  Separabit "  in  the  eighth 
chapter  of  u  Romans,"  which  ended  doubtless 
some  unrecorded  battle  of  the  soul  ? 

Leaving  the  question  as  to  how,  in  the 
first  instance,  Browning  was  led  to  give  his 
thorough  assent  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation, certain  it  is  that  faith  in  that  doctrine 
lies  at  the  root  of  all  his  thoughts.  I  know 
of  no  poet  who  speaks  with  such  consistent 
reverence  and  such  ready  rapture  of  Christ 
as  he.  All  the  light  that  lies  across  his 
fields  of  thought  comes  from  that  Sun  alone. 
Now,  just  as  there  are  hours  in  each  day, 
when,  although  we  do  not  see  the  very  sun, 
we  have  its  light  and  warmth  and  by  the 
help  of  these,  do  our  work  ;  so  there  are, 
126 


The  Incarnation 

of  course,  pages  upon  pages  of  Browning 
in  which  all  that  we  have  of  the  Incar- 
nation is  the  daylight  which  it  gives.  But 
just  as  there  are  fine  days  and  exquisite 
hours,  in  which  we  have  not  only  the  daylight 
but  the  sun  itself  throbbing  in  the  naked 
heavens ;  so  there  are  poems  of  Browning's 
in  which  he  rises  from  the  common  daylight, 
pursues  it  to  its  source,  pierces  mist  and 
cloud  until  he  pauses  on  the  threshold  of  the 
Eternal  order  and  looks  with  adoration  towards 
the  sun,  across  the  blue. 

Perhaps  I  shall  best  represent  Browning's 
teaching  on  the  Incarnation  and  his  method 
of  realising  the  mystery  of  it,  if  I  describe 
somewhat  in  detail  the  two  poems  in  which 
he  deliberately  announces  his  belief  in  that 
doctrine.  I  mean  the  poems,  "  Christmas 
Eve  "  and  "  Saul."  There  are  others,  such 
as  UA  Death  in  the  Desert,"  passages 
from  ct  The  Ring  and  the  Book "  and  from 
"  Ferishtah's  Fancies,"  and  one  notable 
passage  in  "Blougram's  Apology,"  the 
127 


The  Incarnation 

short  poem,  "An  Epistle,"  also  the  u Epi- 
logue to  Dramatis  Personae,"  in  which  his 
belief  in  the  Incarnation,  supported  by  certain 
reasons,  emerges.  But  in  the  two  poems  I 
have  named,  "Christmas  Eve"  and  "Saul," 
Browning  is  engaged  entirely  and  solely  with 
that  doctrine. 

In  "Christmas  Eve  "  the  poet  found  himself 
on  a  wild  winter's  night  -it  was  Christmas 
Eve,  hence  the  title — at  the  door  of  a  mean 
chapel.  He  slipped  into  the  porch  for 
shelter,  and  stood  there  while  the  worshippers 
passed  in.  After  a  time,  he  likewise  entered 
and  sat  down.  The  preaching  was  crude  and 
noisy  and  familiar  without  any  suggestiveness 
— at  least  to  the  poet — of  the  deep  things  of 
God.  Hurt  by  the  man's  narrowness  and 
sourness,  the  poet  rose  and  left  the  place, 
and  stood  under  the  night-sky.  There  was  a 
scene  more  suggestive  to  him  of  God.  At 
the  invitation  of  the  night  and  the  stars,  his 
tongue  is  loosed,  and  high  thoughts,  imagina- 
tions, praise  and  prayer  hurry  from  his  soul — 
128 


The  Incarnation 

{ In  youth  I  looked  to  those  very  skies 
And,  probing  their  immensities, 
I  found  God  there,  His  Visible  Power:, 
Yet  felt  in  my  heart,  amid  all  its  sense 
Of  the  Power,  an  equal  evidence 
That    His    Love,    there    too,    was    the    nobler 

dower  : 
For  the  loving  worm  within  its  clod 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  God 
Amid  His  worlds,  I  will  dare  to  say." 

"  So,  gazing  up,  in  my  youth,  at  love 
As  seen  through  power,  ever  above 
All  modes  which  make  it  manifest, 
My  soul  brought  all  to  a  single  test — 
That  He,  the  Eternal  First  and  Last 
"Who,  in  His  Power,  had  so  surpassed 
All  man  conceives  of  what  is  Might — 
Whose  wisdom,  too,  showed  infinite, 
Would  prove  as  infinitely  good; 
Would  never  (my  soul  understood), 
With  power  to  work  all  love  desires, 
Bestow  e'en  less  than  man  requires ; 
That  He  who  endlessly  was  teaching, 
Above  my  spirit's  utmost  reaching, 
What  love  can  do  in  the  leaf  or  stone, 
(So  that,  to  master  this  alone, 
This  done  in  the  stone  or  leaf  or  me, 
I  must  go  on  learning  endlessly), 

129 


The  Incarnation 

Would  never  need  that  I,  in  turn, 

Should  point  Him  out  defect  unheeded, 

And  show  that  God  had  yet  to  learn 

What  the  meanest  human  creature  needed, 

— Not  life,  to  wit,  for  a  few  short  years 

Tracking  his  way  through  doubts  and  fears, 

While  the  stupid  earth  on  which  I  stay 

Suffers  no  change,  but  passive  adds 

Its  myriad  years  to  myriads, 

Though  I,  He  gave  it  to,  decay, 

See  death  come  and  choose  about  me, 

And  my  dearest  ones  depart  without  me. 

No :  love  which  on   earth,  amid   all  the  shows 

of  it 
Has  ever  been  seen  the  sole  good  of  life  in  it, 
The  love,  ever  growing  there,  spite  of  the  strife 

in  it, 
Shall  arise,  made  perfect,  from  death's  repose 

of  it, 
And  I  shall  behold  Thee,  face  to  face, 

0  God,  and  in  Thy  love  retrace 

How  in  all  I  loved  here,  still  wast  Thou  ! 
Whom,  pressing  to,  then,  as  I  fain  would  now, 

1  shall  find  as  able  to  satiate 

The  love,  Thy  gift,  as  my  spirit's  wonder 
Thou  art  able  to  quicken  and  sublimate 
With  this  sky  of  Thine,  that  I  now  walk  under 
And  glory  in  Thee  for,  as  I  gaze 
Thus,  thus  !  .  .  ." 

130 


The  Incarnation 

As  he  gazed  in  silence  upon  that  huge  sky, 
this  is  what  he  saw.  The  moon,  at  the  full, 
lay  resting  on  a  fleecy  cloud,  "  in  a  triumph 
of  whitest  white."  Above  it,  the  high  dome 
of  the  night ;  while  yet  higher  and  deeper, 
the  circle  of  a  rainbow  spanning  the  heaven 
of  heavens.  As  his  eye  climbed  those 
terraces  of  light  and  paused  at  the  zenith  of 
the  darkness,  he  felt  as  if  the  heavens  were 
about  to  open  and  Some  One  about  to  step 
out  from  the  place  of  God  upon  that  highest 
ring. 

"Oh,  whose  foot  shall  I  see  emerge, 
Whose  from  the  straining  topmost  dark 
On  to  the  keystone  of  that  arc?  " 

Next  moment  the  tempest  had  returned, 
blinding  him,  and  when  it  cleared  he  saw  the 
figure  of  Christ — 

"  He  was  there, 
He  Himself  with  the  human  air 
On  the  rainbow  pathway,  just  before." 

T3* 


The  Incarnation 

But  Christ's  back  was  towards  him,  and 
suddenly  the  poet  understood.  Christ  was 
on  His  way  from  that  mean  meeting-house. 
He  had  been  there  and  doubtless  was  now 
angry  because  the  poet  had  gone  away. 
Therefore  the  poet  hastened  after  Him  and 
begged  forgiveness.  He  pleaded  that  he 
had  left  the  chapel  because  he  thought  the 
preacher  spoke  and  felt  too  meanly  of  God, 
too  meanly  and  poorly  of  His  love  in  Christ ; 
that  it  was  because  he — the  poet — placed 
Christ  higher  than  those  grudging  wor- 
shippers that  he  had  left  them,  wishing  to  be 
alone  to  adore.  Whereupon  Christ  turned 
His  face  full  upon  Him  so  that  he  became 
unconscious  through  the  excess  of  glory. 
From  this  experience  the  poet  learns  that 
Christ  Himself  holds  it  to  be  His  chief  glory 
that  He  is  the  Love  of  God ;  and  learns  also 
that  those  who — in  spite  of  the  bareness  and 
narrowness  of  their  creed — believe  somehow 
that  God  in  Christ  has  given  Himself  in  Love  to 
men,  have  a  hold  of  the  hem  of  His  Garment. 

i32 


The  Incarnation 

Suddenly  the  poet  finds  himself  in  Rome, 
witnessing  the  great  festival  of  Christmas- 
Eve.  He  is  aware  that  there  is  much  foolery 
and  grotesqueness  in  what  he  sees ;  but  he 
has  learned  that  there  too  the  worshippers 
have  at  least  a  hold  of  the  hem  of  Christ's 
garment.  They  are  seeking  to  reassure 
themselves  of  the  Incarnation,  and  are  bear- 
ing witness  to  their  faith  before  the  world. 
He  will  not  quarrel  with  their  methods, 
though  for  himself  he  despises  them.  He 
will  rather  rejoice  that  they  are  doing  what 
they  are  doing  to  the  glory  of  Him, 

"  Who  trod, 

Very  man  and  very  God, 

This  earth  in  weakness,  shame  and  pain." 

Once  more  the  scene  is  changed.  The  poet 
is  looking  into  a  class-room  in  the  University 
of  Gottingen.  The  professor  mounts  his 
place  and  proceeds  to  discuss  what  he  calls 
the  myth  of  Christ.  He  explains  away  all 
that   might   be   thought   miraculous   or   mys- 

!33 


The  Incarnation 

terious  in  the  person  of  Christ,  until  he 
reaches  what  he  says  is  the  naked  truth. 
And  what  is  the  truth  about  Christ  according 
to  this  professor.  This  only :  that  Christ 
was  a  good  and  high-souled  man,  who 
suffered  for  righteousness1  sake,  leaving  us 
an  example.  A  chill  creeps  over  the  poet's 
body  and  seems  to  settle  down  on  his  heart 
as  he  listens.  He  feels  passionately  and  in- 
stinctively that  this  man  has  not  even  the 
hem  of  Christ's  garment,  that  the  truth  is 
not  here.  The  chill  at  his  heart  persuades 
him.  He  listens  again.  The  Professor,  as 
he  concludes,  bids  his  students — even  though 
they  can  no  longer  worship  Christ  or  place 
their  hopes  on  Him — reverence  the  myth, 
cherish  the  pure  and  pathetic  story  of  his  life 
and  death.  And  here  Browning  warms  to 
the  controversy,  in  a  bantering  way  no  doubt, 
but  we  know  from  our  past  studies  that 
Browning  is  never  in  such  dead  earnest  as 
when  he  banters.  He  only  banters  when  he 
knows  that  he   has   the  game  in  his   hand. 

x34 


The  Incarnation 

And  so  he  plies  the  Gottingen  professor  with 
rapid  thrusts ;  showing  him  what  his  advice 
— "  to  reverence  the  myth  "  —  amounts  to. 
It  is  no  longer  Christ  who  is  to  support  us ; 
according  to  the  new  style  it  is  we  who  are 
to  support  Christ,  support  Him  and  keep  Him 
alive  by  our  application  and  study.  "  Well, 
well,"  he  says, 

"Deduce  from  this  lecture  all  that  eases  you ; 
Nay,  call  yourselves,  if  the  calling  pleases  you, 
*  Christians  ' — abhor  the  deist's  pravity — 
Go  on,  you  shall  no  more  move  my  gravity 
Than,  when  I  see  boys  ride  a-cockhorse, 
I  find  it  in  my  heart  to  embarrass  them 
By  hinting  that  their  stick's  a  mockhorse 
And   they   really  carry  what  they    say   carries 
them." 

Next  moment  he  is  back  in  the  mean  little 
chapel,  in  which  indeed  he  had  all  the  while 
been  dreaming;  and  the  poem  ends  with  a 
warning  to  those  who  might  suppose  from  its 
jaunty  movement  that  Browning  was  not 
profoundly  concerned  in  the  great  Matter  of 
Faith,  which  has  been  the  subject  of  it  all. 

l35 


The  Incarnation 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  engaged 
rather  in  proving  that  Browning  believed  in 
the  Incarnation,  than  in  recommending  that 
doctrine  to  others.  It  remains  to  us  to  dis- 
cover the  method  by  which  Browning  realised 
the  doctrine  so  that  it  did  not  remain  as  a 
merely  mysterious  truth  at  an  exalted  distance 
from  his  mind,  but  came  near  to  him  and 
became  the  basis  and  power  of  his  daily  life 
as  a  man  and  as  a  thinker.  Although  our 
first  quotation  from  "  Christmas  Eve  "• — 
the  long  one — contains  the  substance  of 
Browning's  teaching  on  the  Incarnation, 
we  must  look  more  deliberately  at  those 
ideas  if  we  are  to  feel  their  full  force,  and 
are  to  be  convinced.  I  think  we  shall  come 
at  them  most  easily  if  we  look  at  the  poem 
"Saul,"  where  we  find  those  ideas  living  and 
acting.  The  poem  is  based  upon  the  incident 
in  i  Samuel  xvi.,  where  we  read  how  when 
the  evil  spirit  afflicted  King  Saul,  he  sent  for 
David  to  play  before  him,  and  how  when 
"  David  took  the  harp  and  played  with  his 
136 


The  Incarnation 

hand,  Saul  was  refreshed  and  was  well,  and 
the  evil  spirit  departed  from  him." 

Abner  meets  young  David  at  the  door  of 
the  tent,  where  for  three  days  King  Saul  had 
been  sitting  in  darkness,  and  with  his  soul  in 
darkness.  As  the  old  soldier  sees  the  fresh  lad, 
"with  God's  dew  on  his  gracious  gold  hair," 
and  the  lilies  twined  round  his  harp-strings 
as  if  the  world  held  nothing  but  beauty,  he 
felt — though  he  could  have  given  no  reason 
— that  the  soul  of  Saul  would  be  set  free, 
when  all  this  freshness  and  innocence  had 
looked  up  into  his  face.  David  having  knelt 
and  prayed,  entered  the  darkness.  uHere 
is  David,  thy  servant."  But  no  voice  replied. 
Slowly,  as  his  eyes  became  used  to  the  dark- 
ness, he  saw  the  grand  figure  of  the  King 
standing  erect  in  the  centre.  David  said  not 
a  word,  but  tuned  his  harp  and  played. 
First  he  played  the  tune  that  the  sheep 
know,  which  calls  them  home  in  the  evening. 
Then  the  tune  which  makes  the  quails  follow 
the  player.     Then  the  wine-song,  which  the 

l2>7 


The  Incarnation 

reapers  sing  when  standing  amid  the  fulness 
of  the  harvest  they  feel  the  joy  of  life. 
Then  he  played  the  funeral-dirge  when  the 
dead  man  is  praised  on  his  journey.  "  Bear, 
bear  him  along,"  the  harp  seemed  to  say, 
"with  his  few  faults  shut  up  like  dead 
flowerets.  The  land  has  none  left  such  as 
he  on  the  bier.  Oh,  would  we  might  keep 
thee,  my  brother."  And  then  he  played  the 
marriage  hymn.  Then  he  played  a  battle- 
song,  when  strong  men  forget  to  fear.  Then 
the  chorus  of  the  priests  as  they  draw  near  to 
the  altar.  Then  David  stopped,  for  there  in 
the  darkness  Saul  groaned.  His  head  moved, 
causing  the  jewels  in  his  turban  to  flash.  It 
was  as  if  life  was  coming  back  to  him.  Then 
David  bent  over  his  harp  and  sang.  He  sang 
of  the  beauty  of  God's  world,  and  the  good 
gift  of  life.  He  sang  of  cool  rivers  and 
shady  trees,  of  the  hunt  and  the  welcome 
sleep  among  the  bulrushes.  Then  he  began 
to  sing  the  story  of  King  Saul — the  story  as 
it  might  have  been,  as  it  still  was,  beyond 

13s 


The  Incarnation 

the  walls  of  the  poor  king's  dismal  mind.  He 
sang  of  Saul's  father,  and  of  the  early  days, 
of  Saul's  boyhood,  that  boyhood  of  wonder 
and  hope  ;  of  the  marvellous  ways  of  God, 
by  which  Saul  was  now  become  king.  He 
sang  of  Saul's  brave  deeds,  of  his  beauty  and 
his  strength,  how  nature  and  the  people's 
choice  and  God's  anointing,  all  crowned  King 
Saul.  As  his  song  had  been  coming  to  its  close, 
the  minstrel's  heart  had  grown  warm.  He 
had  felt  the  stir  of  the  old  stories,  so  that 
when  the  last  word  had  to  be  sounded,  and 
David  cried — "  Saul !  " — 'twas  the  trump  of 
the  Lord  and  of  a  nation.  Then  "  Saul  was 
struck  by  his  name."  And  suddenly,  as  the 
piled-up  avalanche  cracks  and  rushes  down 
the  mountain-side,  leaving  the  mountain 
black  and  bare,  yet  capable  of  verdure  by- 
and-by,  so  the  blackness  rolled  away  from 
the  soul  of  Saul.  Death  was  past,  but  life 
had  not  yet  come.  His  hand  held  his  brow, 
then  fell ;  then  arm  folded  arm  across  his 
chest.      Thus  he  stood.      But  what   should 

*39 


The  Incarnation 

the  minstrel  sing  now  ?  How  keep  Saul 
free  ?  How  hinder  him  from  falling  back, 
how  lift  him  sheer  out  of  the  toils  and  the 
shame  of  the  past  ?  Again  the  minstrel 
bent  over  his  harp  and  sang,  "  But  'twas 
Thou,  O  God,  who  didst  give  him  the  song." 
He  sang  of  the  progress  of  life,  of  those 
stages  and  levels  that  speak  of  a  triumph  in 
the  fulness  of  the  days.  He  sang  the  blessed 
Gospel,  that  by  God's  mercy  the  past  may 
be  past  for  ever.  How  the  best  may  yet  be 
coming.  Is  Saul  dead  ?  So  be  it :  "  In  the 
depth  of  the  vale  make  his  tomb."  Let 
a  new  Saul  arise  from  the  grave  of  the 
old. 

As  he  sang,  making  the  offer  of  a  new 
beginning  to  the  man,  the  look  of  care 
passed  from  Saul.  A  great  gentleness  came 
over  him ;  some  hard  thing  had  melted  away. 
He  drew  the  young  lad  towards  him,  and  sat 
down.  Thus  he  sat  for  long,  stroking 
David's  yellow  hair.  And  oh,  how  David 
loved  him  then !  He  yearned  to  fill  Saul's 
140 


The  Incarnation 

life  with  love  and  with  the  power  to  be  great 
for  ever. 

"  Could  I  help  thee,  my  father,  inventing  a  bliss 
I  would  add,  to  that  life  of  the  past,  both  the 

future  and  this, 
I  would  give  thee  new  life  altogether,  as  good, 

ages  hence, 
As  this  moment — had  love  but  the  warrant,  love's 

heart  to  dispense." 

"Then  the  truth  came  upon  me,"  says 
David,  who  has  up  to  this  point  been  speak- 
ing. But  now  Browning  himself  pours  out 
his  soul,  though  still  speaking  in  David's 
name.  And  this  is  his  message.  "  I  see  the 
truth  now  and  thus.  As  a  man,  I  have  a 
certain  faculty  for  knowledge.  But  how 
poor  and  weak  compared  with  the  Divine 
Wisdom  which  appears  in  this  orderly  uni- 
verse !  I  have  forethought ;  but  how  weak 
it  is  beside  the  Infinite  Care  of  God !  Every 
faculty  which  I  have,  I  find  already  displayed 
to  an  infinite  degree  by  God.  Now,  this  day 
as  I  played  before  Saul  to  deliver  him  from 

K  MI 


The  Incarnation 

his  frenzy,  as  I  looked  upon  his  weakness 
and  his  loneliness,  I  loved  him.  I,  a  poor 
erring  child  myself,  I  loved  him.  Ah,  will 
not  God  love  him  more !  How  God  must 
love  him !  Is  it  to  be  thought  that  God,  who 
has  given  me  my  faculties,  Himself  has  them 
not  in  infinite  fulness  ?  If  ninety-nine  doors 
open,  why  should  the  hundredth  appal?  If 
God  exceeds  me  in  the  least  things,  will  He 
fall  behind  me  in  the  greatest?  Here,  in 
this  great  matter  of  loving,  loving  the  weak, 
the  broken-hearted,  the  rebellious,  shall  the 
creature  surpass  the  Creator  ?  Would  I  do 
all  for  that  man  ;  and  will  God  do  nothing  ? 
Would  I  sacrifice  myself  in  order  to  rescue 
the  true  Saul  from  his  fetters  ;  and  will  God 
be  less  loving  than  I  ?  Never !  Tis  Thou, 
God,  that  givest,  'tis  I  who  receive.  The 
love  I  feel  is  already  in  Thee  before  it  could 
be  in  me.  What  is  it  that  stops  my  despair 
as  I  think  of  my  own  helplessness  to  remove 
Saul's  misery  or  the  world's  misery  ?  This  : 
that  what  I  would  do,  God  has  done  or  will 
142 


The  Incarnation 

do.      Or    to    quote     from    Browning    else- 
where : — 

"This   good    God — what    He  could  do,   if  He 

would, 
Would  if  He  could — then  must  have  done  long 

since ; 
If  so,  when,  where,  and  how  ?    Some  way  must 

be- 
Once  feel  about,  and  soon  or  late  you  hit 
Some  sense  in  which  it  might  be,  after  all, 
Why  not,  The  Way,  The  Truth,  The  Life." 

He  surely — 

"  Would  never  need  that  I,  in  turn, 
Should  point  Him  out  defect  unheeded, 
And  show  that  God  had  yet  to  learn 
What  the  meanest  human  creature  needed." 

No! 

"  Would    I    suffer    for    one    that    I    love  ?      So 
wouldst  Thou,  so  wilt  Thou. 
So   shall   crown   Thee   the   topmost   ineffablest 

uttermost  crown — 
And  Thy  Love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave 
up  nor  down 

143 


The  Incarnation 

One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in  !     It  is  by 

no  breath, 
Turn  of  eye,  wave  of  hand,  that  Salvation  joins 

issue  with  death  ! 
As  Thy  Love  is  discovered  Almighty,  almighty 

be  proved, 
Thy  Power  that  exists  with  and  for  it  of  being 

beloved ! 
He    who     did    most,     shall    bear    most ;    the 

strongest  shall  stand  the  most  weak  ! 
'Tis  the  weakness  in  strength,  that  I  cry  for ! 

My  flesh  that  I  seek 
In  the  Godhead  !     I  seek  and  I  find  it.    O  Saul 

it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee ;  a  man 

like  to  me 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  for  ever;  a 

Hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee ! 

see  the  Christ  stand  !  " 

When  he  reached  this  thought,  and  had  made 
it  ring  like  a  proclamation  through  his  own 
soul — the  thought  of  God  out  of  the  stress 
of  love,  giving  Himself  to  man — David,  i.e. 
Browning  himself  tells  us — all  nature  took 
on  a  different  look.  The  hills,  grey  with 
144 


The  Incarnation 

early  morn,  the  beasts  of  the  field,  the  birds, 
the  purling  brooks,  all  murmured  to  his 
spirit,   "  Even  so,   it  is  so." 

There  are  two  criticisms  which  might  be 
made  upon  Browning's  teaching  on  the  In- 
carnation. We  shall  do  little  more  than 
mention  them ;  for  after  feeling  the  thrill  of 
faith  which  never  fails  to  come  to  me  as  I 
read  "  Saul,"  I  confess  I  have  little  interest 
in  difficulties.  It  might  be  objected  that  it 
was  unwarrantable  to  build  a  doctrine  of 
God's  nature  upon  anything  in  human 
nature.  That  Browning's  teaching  is  the 
merest  anthropomorphism.  But  Browning 
himself  was  well  aware  of  that.  He,  how- 
ever, looked  at  the  relation  between  God  and 
man  from  the  opposite  standpoint.  To  your 
objection  that  he  was  making  a  God  in  his 
own  image,  he  would  have  replied,  "What 
you  mean  is  that  God  has  made  man  in  His 
image "  ;  which  is  the  old  story.  As  he 
says : — 

145 


The  Incarnation 

"  Take  all  in  a  word  ;  the  truth  in  God's  breast 
Lies  trace  for  trace  upon  ours  impressed : 
Though  He  is  so  bright  and  we  so  dim, 
We  are  made  in  His  Image  to  witness  Him." 

Are  our  religious  instincts  to  be  trusted,  or 
is  the  light  that  is  in  us  darkness  ?  These 
are  the  alternatives.  In  other  regions  what 
we  call  truth  is  truth  absolute  and  eternal. 
Two  and  two  make  four  here  and  in  every 
conceivable  world.  We  have  the  instinct 
that  this  is  an  orderly  world — all  our  sciences 
are  based  upon  that  assumption.  Is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  in  the  region  of  our  peculiar 
endowment  as  human,  in  our  sense  of  what 
is  ethically  right  and  the  very  highest,  we 
should  be  deceiving  ourselves  ?  Can  u  a 
Cosmos  have  a  Chaos  for  its  crown?"  Love 
— the  giving  away  of  oneself,  the  spending, 
the  toiling,  the  bearing,  the  pardoning,  the 
helping  for  the  sake  of  others,  for  their 
good,  to  make  them  pure,  gentle,  holy — love 
is  the  highest  and  the  best  we  know.  But 
the  effect  can  never  be  greater  than  its  cause  ; 
146 


The  Incarnation 

the  Creature  cannot  surpass  his  Creator.  The 
highest  we  know  must  at  least  be  within 
God.  At  least — for  He  must  ever  transcend 
our  most  penetrating  reach  in  what  is  good. 
He  must  have  within  Himself  our  best  and 
more.  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect 
gift  cometh  down  from  above ;  from  the 
Father  and  Home  of  these  lights. 

Once  more,  it  might  be  objected  to 
Browning's  teaching  on  the  Incarnation,  and, 
indeed,  to  any  belief  in  the  Incarnation  that 
there  are  many  things  in  this  present  scene 
which  make  it  hard  to  hold.  But  with 
Browning  a  faith  must  always  be  hard  to 
hold ;  faith  is  the  contradiction  of  many 
signs. 

"  You  must  mix  some  uncertainty 
With  faith  if  you  would  have  faith  be." 

He  would  ask  you  to  trust  those  moments 
when  the  grand  hope  seemed  true  to  you. 
He  would  appeal  to  you  to  believe  in  the 
stars  which  you   see  for  a  fine  moment  now 

147 


The  Incarnation 

and  then,  though  next  moment  they  are 
blurred  and  blotted  out  with  cloud  and 
tempest.     For  himself,  he  sings — 

"  So  long  as  there  be  just  enough 
To  pin  my  faith  to,  though  it  hap 
Only  at  points  ;  from  gap  to  gap, 
One  hangs  up  a  huge  curtain  so 
Grandly,  nor  seeks  to  have  it  go 
Foldless  and  flat  along  the  wall. 
What  care  I  if  some  interval 
Of  life  less  plainly  may  depend 
On  God  ?     I'd  hang  there  to  the  end." 

For,  however  we  may  fall  away  from  those 
high  moments  of  the  soul,  it  was  truth,  it 
was  reality,  it  was  the  Face  of  God,  which 
they  disclosed  : — 

"  There,  where  I  once  saw  points,  I  now  see  stars." 


THE    END 


Starting  Points 

For  Speakers,  P  readier sy  and  other  Thinkers. 
Sentences  sifted  from  Authors   of  To-day  and    Yesterday. 

By   JOHN   HOOKE. 

"  What  a  boon  the  book  should  prove." — Liverpool  Mercury. 

"An  excellent  selection  of  thought.  .  .  .  The  quotations  were  gleaned  in 
the  course  of  everyday  reading,  and  are  therefore  likely  to  be  of  service  to 
average  needs.  Each  reflects  a  distinct  idea  or  suggestion."— Belfast  Neivs 
Letter. 

"The  quotations  are  chiefly  from  modern  authors,  and  all  in  prose.  The 
reader  in  search  of  mental  stimulus  need  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  the  key 
to  unlock  his  brain  and  set  his  own  imprisoned  thoughts  free." — Cheltenham 
Chronicle. 

"This  book  is  one  of  the  best  of  its  kind.  It  is  a  collection  of  original 
sentences  from  our  best  writers.  The  thoughts  quoted  are  seminal,  and, 
apart  from  the  usefulness  of  the  book  to  speakers  and  writers,  it  is  one  that 
will  richly  repay  perusal  for  its  own  sake.  The  design  is  novel,  and  has  been 
admirably  carried  out." — St.  Andrew. 

"The  kind  of  book  we  often  long  for  in  certain  moods  when  we  are  indis- 
posed to  read  anything  long,  and  want  something  short  and  interesting,  to 
rest  and  occupy  or  inspire  rather  than  task  the  mind— just  the  book  for  a 
railway  journey." — Northern  Ensign. 

"  Will  prove  most  valuable  to  speakers  and  preachers,  and  will  frequently 
suggest  a  fruitful  train  of  thought  which  would  never  otherwise  have  got  on 
the  rails.  The  book  is  beautifully  printed  and  handsomely  got  up.  The 
subject  of  each  quotation  is  noted  in  the  margin,  and  the  reference  is 
facilitated  by  a  full  index."— Aberdeen  Journal. 

"Such  a  book  as  this  has  its  uses  ;  a  busy  man  can  turn  to  it  for  hints,  and, 
having  got  his  text,  can  go  ahead.  It  is  like  grace  before  meat." — Sheffield 
Telegraph. 

"The  title  of  this  useful  handbook  is  a  fair  indication  of  the  object  intended 
to  be  served  by  its  publication."— Northern  Whig. 

"A  suggestive  and  well  indexed  compilation  of  sententious  observations, 
most  of  which  have  a  direct  and  immediate  interest  for  men  immersed  in  the 
intellectual  life. " — Scotsman. 

"The  extracts  are  well  indexed,  which  is  a  great  advantage.  Will  form  a 
useful  book  of  reference." — Midland  Free  Press. 

"The  result  of  intelligent  reading  and  marginal  notes."—  Yorkshire  Post. 

"Each  and  all  suggestive." — Irish  Presbyterian. 

"Arranged  in  a  way  that  renders  it  easy  of  reference.  Conveys  Bible 
knowledge  in  a  picturesque  and  attractive  way,  and  we  commend  it  to  the 
attention  of  parents  and  teachers."— Aberdeen  Free  Press. 


The  Dream   of  Dante: 

An  Interpretation  of  the  Inferno. 
By   HENRY   F.  HENDERSON,  M.A., 

"Author  of  "  Erskine  of  Linlathen." 

"He  knows  the  poem  well,  and  his  comments  are  pertinent." — 
Athenaeum. 

"  Last  month  Messrs.  Oliphant,  Anderson  &  Ferrier  gave  us  a  fresh 
book  on  Browning,  and  gave  it  in  the  best  style  of  printing  and 
publishing.  This  month  it  is  Dante,  equally  fresh,  and  equally 
charming  as  a  book." — Expository  Times. 

"  He  gives  in  clear  and  interesting  outline  the  main  scheme  of  the 
poet,  and  shows  how,  in  spite  of  materialistic  conceptions  which  few 
could  in  Dante's  time  escape,  the  great  poet  has  taught  the  awful 
nature  of  sin  by  the  sight  of  its  awful  punishment." — Examiner. 

"This  is  a  very  attractive  book.  It  is  also  well  written  and  inter- 
esting throughout.  In  the  end  the  reader  gets  a  good  general  idea  of 
the  contents  and  the  purpose  of  the  Inferno." — Critical  Revieio. 

"In  his  'Erskine  of  Linlathen,'  Mr.  Henderson  proved  himself 
possessed  of  the  qualities  that  are  needed  to  make  writing  simple, 
sympathetic,  and  discriminating.  His  little  book  on  Dante's  dream 
will  be  read  with  pleasure  by  all  who  are  looking  for  a  simple  intro- 
duction to  one  of  the  four  greatest  poets  of  history." — Messenger 
(Queensland). 

"  A  critical  and  sympathetic  interpretation  of  the  great  poet's 
work." — Christian  Commonwealth. 

"The  book  is  a  suggestive  one,  and  one  that  seems  well  calculated 
to  arouse  interest  in  the  Divine  Comedy,  and  to  serve  as  an  intro- 
duction to  a  fuller  study  of  it." — Glasgow  Herald. 

"The  book  bears  you  easily  and  swiftly  to  the  heart  of  one  of  the 
world's  greatest  poems." — Teachers'  Aid. 

"A  simple,  strong  book,  with  a  clear  purpose  which  the  author 
keeps  steadily  in  view.  We  can  commend  it  cordially  to  young 
people  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  Dante's  Inferno." — Dominion 
Presbyterian  (Ottawa). 

"Besides  telling  the  story  of  the  Inferno  in  a  graphic  and  forceful 
way,  with  many  historical  and  other  explanations,  Mr.  Henderson  is 
especially  good  in  his  religious  and  ethical  interpretation.  His  book 
will  serve  as  an  excellent  introduction  to  a  direct  acquaintance  with 
the  work  of  the  master  himself." — Christian  Guardian. 


Guidance  from  Robert  Browning 
in  Matters  of  Faith. 

By   JOHN   A.    HUTTON,    M.A., 

Newcastle-on-Tyne. 

"Mr.  Hutton  undoubtedly  writes  with  knowledge  as  well  as 
earnestness,  and  he  puts  his  case  for  Browning  as  a  guide  in  matters  of 
faith  very  skilfully.  .  .  .  The  book  taken  as  a  whole  must  be  accounted 
one  of  the  best  expositions  that  have  ever  appeared  of  Browning's 
position  as  a  defender  of  the  leading  '  fundamentals '  of  Christianity." 
— Spectator. 

"The  kind  of  book  to  take  up  with  confidence  in  Bible-class  work." 

— Critical  Review. 

"  One  of  the  best  expositions  of  the  religious  teaching  of  Browning." 
—Great  Thoughts. 

"Every  chapter  is  a  strong,  sure  word  of  help." — TeacJiers'  Aid. 

"We  cordially  recommend  this  noble  book."- -St.  Andrew. 

"We  are  grateful  for  so  masterly  a  study." — Baptist  Magazine. 

"There  is  always  room  for  a  book  so  fresh  and  individual  as  Mr. 

Hutton's. " — Christian  World. 

"Very  good  indeed." — Sunday  School  Chronicle. 

"  He  has  rendered  a  real  service  to  all  lovers  of  religion  and 
literature." — Schoolmaster. 

"  The  book  is  one  for  which  careful  students  of  Browning  will  be 
grateful,  while  at  the  same  time  anyone  may  read  it  with  profit  and 
delight.  It  is  crowded  with  suggestiveness  for  the  preacher  and 
teacher. " — Christian  Guardian. 

"  By  a  Christian  minister  who  knows  well  the  intellectual  difficulties 
that  have  to  be  faced  by  thoughtful  young  men,  and  who  has  found  in 
the  careful  study  of  Browning's  works  inspiration  and  strength  in 
facing  these  difficulties."— Dominion  Presbyterian. 

"Sincere  and  thoughtful,  and  some  who  find  a  poet's  treatment  of 
the  fundamental  problems  of  life  and  death  more  helpful  than  the 
discourses  of  professed  theologians  may  be  grateful  for  being  intro- 
duced to  Browning's  characteristic  methods  of  thought." — Morning 
Leader. 


Erskine  of  Linlathen  : 

Selections  and  Biography. 

By   HENRY   F.    HENDERSON,  M.A., 

Author  of  "The  Dream  of  Dante." 

"The  book  is  a  great  boon,  and  will  be  a  great  success.  Thomas 
Erskine  has  waited  all  this  time  for  a  capable  and  sympathetic 
historian.  His  life  has  really  never  been  written  till  now." — Expository 
Times. 

"An  admirable  and  much -needed  biography.  ...  In  a  chapter 
exhibiting  much  critical  power,  Mr.  Henderson  sets  forth  the 
peculiarities  of  Erskine's  teaching." — Dundee  Advertiser. 

"The  book  affords  in  brief  compass  an  excellent  epitome  of  the  man 
and  his  work." — Scotsman. 

"  Mr.  Henderson  is  to  be  congratulated  on  the  picture  he  gives  us  of 
Erskine.  ...  If  the  book  turns  men's  thoughts  back  to  this  rare  and 
attractive  teacher,  it  will  not  have  been  written  in  vain."—  Critical 
Review. 

"  Mr.  Henderson's  book  points  to  a  revived  interest  in  the  person- 
ality of  one  who  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  important  theological 
factors  of  the  nineteenth  century." — Guardian. 

"How  welcome  is  a  book  like  this  in  such  a  time  of  stress  and 
turmoil.  .  .  .  There  will  be  many  to  whom  this  volume  will  bring  back 
the  fragrance  of  long  remembered  days." — British  Weekly, 

"A notable  book,  and  one  for  which  there  was  a  distinct  call." — 
Kilmarnock  Standard. 

"We  thank  Mr.  Henderson  for  this  book." — Spectator. 


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